


courtship dating

by hupsoonheng



Series: Nuclearstuck [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Asexual Character, Developing Relationship, Dubious Consent, Dysphoria, Fat Karkat, Gender Dysphoria, Homophobic Language, I AM TRYING TO TAG HELPFULLY HERE, Long Distance Relationship, M/M, Past Abuse, Trans Character, Xeno, Xenobiology, self-loathing fat character please watch out ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 17:58:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hupsoonheng/pseuds/hupsoonheng
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John meets Karkat while dating Dave, things were already complicated, but this takes it to Escher levels as far as John's concerned. Life is hard. Dating is harder. </p><p>(prequel to current nuclearstuck arc)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'm working on both this and selkie lover at the same time because i can and because work is exhausting and drains me of most of my creative energy
> 
> either way now you get to learn about john, karkat, and a young dave so enjoy

You’re in high school still when it begins. You’ve known Dave for years already—since you were eleven, actually—and you’ve kept a quiet crush on him since he survived the beginnings of puberty. But one night in your last year of school, you mash out a quick text, sent with your eyes closed, asking a simple heart-pounding question:

do you like me? 

His response is instantaneous and flippant, _of course i like you dunkass_ , and you clarify:

no, like, the way they  
say it on hey arnold.  
do you like-me like me. 

You go to bed feeling sick without an answer from him. Your mind is a whirling mess as you lay down, full of doubts and fear. Maybe you’ve ruined the friendship, which wouldn’t surprise you after how dumb that text was. Maybe you misjudged his sexuality, too—it’s not like he’s ever said outright one way or the other. (You’d like to think you always have something better to talk about.)

There’s still nothing in your inbox the next morning, after what you think might be the shittiest sleep you’ve had in, like, ever, and your dad asks what’s wrong when he drives you to school. You give him a wan smile, tell him everything’s okay. He puts on Vicente Fernandez, probably to cheer you up—you used to belt out the lyrics to _El Rey_ when you were little, much to your dad’s amusement—and it works a little bit, so long as you don’t listen to the actual words. (It’s not your dad’s fault he put on a song about crying over rejection—that’s most ranchero music anyway.)

By third period, all that warm nostalgia’s worn off. It’s not even your trigonometry teacher’s inability to get your name right (neither your birth name nor your actual name—she keeps calling you Jane, which is your cousin’s name). It’s not like it makes you feel good or anything, but you’ve learned to wave it off. It’s just every consecutive, fruitless check of your phone that kills you a little more. 

In retrospect you should have seen this coming. Why would Dave respect such a pedestrian proposal? Childish, really—a Hey Arnold reference? Really, John? Every time your thumb slips and you accidentally tab over to your sent messages, or even so much as picture the text, you cringe. You feel so fucking stupid. 

Your dad swings by to pick you up from school, and your phone chimes just as you climb in the car. He makes you buckle up before you can check it. Then of course the thing sasses you when you try to swipe the screen lock. Nothing works, ever.

holy shit my phone died  
and then i lost my  
charger like a jackass 

You wait. And then, less than sixty seconds later—

so how do we work this  
dinner and a movie shit long  
distance like i cant exactly swing by  
at 8 i dont have any miles saved  
up being underage and all

Your dad asks what’s making you smile as hard as you are; all you can do in response is shrug and say something about it being a stupid kids’ joke so he won’t pry. He doesn’t.

From there it’s almost embarrassing how by the book the pair of you become for long distance teenage relationships. Skype calls start to replace at least a few hours’ worth of your daily online conversations. You can’t pick your favorite part of Dave on the calls; his voice makes you shiver sometimes with its depth. It’s a lot deeper than yours, anyway, and it’s such a drastic change from the last time you tried any kind of call with him, when you’d first met and thought you could get away with long distance landline calls to your internet friend. (You couldn’t.) 

You try not to acknowledge your jealousy, because you’re pretty sure that would spoil things, but it’s not just his voice. You’re jealous too of his shoulders, broad and rounded, of his jawline, and most of all his ability to sit on camera without a shirt on and without giving a single fuck about it. It’s not that you mind the view at all, but you wish you could be as casual about it. You will sit in your binder, though, which is long enough to look like an undershirt, and try to tell yourself that’s just as good. 

Dave doesn’t razz you about it. When you were younger he was more than a little bit terrible about your desire to be called a _him_ instead, but out of all the people your own age that you knew, he was the least terrible about it, so you tried to take his shit in stride. A few months after coming out to him, you got followed home by jackasses that had known you as a girl in middle school, and it wasn’t like your new identity was well known in town, but apparently passing for a tomboy was enough for them to harass you. When you ducked inside your house you ran to the computer and tried to calm yourself down talking about the absolute stupidest shit with Dave; he saw right through you, though. After you told him what happened, you had his solemn word that he would never be such a little fuckface about your gender again. 

So really, it’s not that Dave doesn’t know that you have breasts. You just don’t see those breasts as having a place in the equation of your budding relationship. 

The two of you start making plans to visit each other. For a while there’s a debate about who will host and who will visit for this first face-to-face meeting, but you settle on Dave being the visitor. It’s a little disappointing considering he lives in New York and you live in boring-ass crackerville Maple Valley, WA; you’ve always wanted to see New York City, even before you met Dave. But he keeps insisting that his apartment is unlivable and his siblings unbearable, so you end up dropping it. 

Dates get shuffled around. Dave has to save enough from working an after-school job at Wendy’s, and it’s slow going when part of his paycheck goes toward groceries. You’re also nervous about asking your dad about it. He’s been pretty decent about your gender identity, but he’s from another era as far as you’re concerned, and you’re totally unsure as to how he’d handle his only child being transgender _and_ queer. Gay? You’re pretty sure you’re just gay. Maybe you shouldn’t rush to conclusions when you’re still a teenager, though. 

Around the middle of your last semester of high school, your college plans are set—CalTech in Los Angeles, for engineering—and you end up not telling your dad a damn thing about Dave. Your dad is gonna help you move into your dorm a few weeks beforehand, and the same day he leaves is the day you plan on picking Dave up from the airport. If you can’t host Dave in your dorm, or even manage to sneak him in, you promise to put your savings toward paying for his hotel room for five whole days. You kind of hope Dave hasn’t been lying for years about his stealth skills. 

It feels like a literal age until then. You expect to be excited, and at first you really are—psyched, honestly, really, truly. You think about the movies you’ll watch, between which ones will torture Dave the most, and which he might actually enjoy. You look for cheap, well-reviewed restaurants in LA on Yelp, and make sure your 360 and a bunch of your favorite titles with multiplayer are definitely are on your college pack list. 

Dave has other ideas. 

He starts talking about sex a month after your plans have been set. He’s surprisingly shy about it at first, so roundabout in his wording that you laugh it off as “Dave rambling again”; you don’t realize until you’re drifting off to sleep that night that he was referring to his dick. (It keeps you awake an extra hour just thinking about it.) The next day you drop a response out of the blue into a conversation about nostalgia for Digimon, and it’s almost embarrassing until it makes Dave blush, and then you get to point it out and laugh at him because it shows up way more obviously on his skin than yours. 

It encourages him, though, and you feel like he’s going a lot faster than you are. You talk about cute kisses—he talks about going down on you, although mercifully he doesn’t specify the shape of your genitalia. You don’t even know what to say to that—how the hell did he learn to talk dirty like that? You sure as fuck have no clue how to do it, so you just let him monologue when he gets like that. He’s good at that. But shit, you’re glad you’re wearing headphones when he does; you feel like even miles away at work, your dad would somehow hear the filthy shit that comes out of Dave’s mouth. 

You can’t lie. There’s definitely a part of you that’s turned on when he gets all heavy-lidded and kind of lustful at you on camera, when he runs his mouth poetic about how he wants to feel your skin warm under his fingers. He doesn’t get like this until the end of the night, usually; you start to realize that you don’t look forward to it. If anything there’s a bubble of dread that builds up in your stomach throughout the day, that pops ugly and anxious when he shifts in his seat and asks you if you thought about him “like that” today. You start making things up—maybe that’s how Dave does it. That whole “fake it till you make it” schtick. You’re not sure if he’s convinced—until the night he asks for even more. 

He looks more nervous than you’ve ever felt, which puts you oddly at ease. “Can,” he begins, before licking his lips and trying again, “can I, uh, can we...? Like, you know, uh, touch ourselves, while, we talk...” His face is red under the dusky pallor of his skin, and he’s looking away, rubbing his hands together in what you thought was a tic he’d gotten rid of. 

So much for feeling at ease. “You can,” you say, trying not to let your voice go too high. “I don’t, uh—”

“Oh, dude, no, whoa, I’m super fucking sorry, I forgot—” Dave interrupts you, and then himself as he waves his hands in front of the screen. “I mean, either way you don’t have to do shit you don’t wanna do, you know?”

“Uh, yeah.” You whip your glasses off to clean them, an excuse to not have to see your screen for a moment. “But no, I wouldn’t mind if you did?” You slide your glasses back on and flash him a quick smile, which isn’t entirely insincere. 

“You’ll probably have to, like, talk me up toward the end of it, if you get what I mean,” he mumbles, followed by the loudest zipping noise you think you’ve ever heard. You might just be imagining things, though. 

“Uh, yeah,” you repeat, and shit, there goes his hand off the bottom of the screen. You swallow and it feels like a bowling ball just dropped into your gut. 

There’s no doubt that Dave Strider is hot. When he gets really into touching himself his head rolls back and so do his eyes, and you’d be lying if you said your thumb didn’t brush across the front of your jeans. As pale as his albinism makes him he’s still got brown nipples that sometimes he traces over, and you can imagine yourself doing the same, maybe putting your mouth over one. Normally you might be embarrassed to even think something like that, but it’s clear that Dave likes you, would want you to do those things to him. 

It’s just when you imagine him doing the same in return that you go cold. 

You’re glad for the chance to laugh when he comes and it sort of spurts over his chest and back over his shoulder. “This is fucking gross,” Dave grumbles, and you just cackle as he wipes himself off with a tissue and disgusted noises. “Mother Nature needs to work on that feature, in my humble opinion.” 

He still asks you how you liked it, though, and you tell him half the honest truth—that he’s hot as fuck, that you would definitely want to take care of that for him in person. (The “definitely” is embellishment, because sometimes you’re not even sure of that, but he doesn’t have to know that.) Then he starts to ask what you want done to you in return, and you panic. You close the window, end the call, and then message him that the call dropped. 

It makes you feel like a piece of shit, lying like that, but you didn’t have an answer ready and you just—this whole mess has got to be nerves. There is no reason for you to feel so sick whenever you think of Dave touching you. Sure, when he opens your pants he’s not going to find a cock—or not a real, flesh and blood one, anyway, if maybe you’ve finally gotten yourself the packer you’ve been dying for and been too young to buy—but he’d understand, right? He’s been so good about it for years, he wouldn’t fuck it up now. He’s your best friend. 

You bid him an early good night, and lie in bed hating yourself. 

It’s not even that you inherently hate your body, although at times you definitely feel a sense of betrayal. A single sock down the front, a binder on your skinny, small-boobed frame and you’ve more or less shaped yourself an acceptable body. You’ve got one of those round, kind of ambiguous faces, which your dad says is your “Indio blood”, whatever that means, so with your hair cut short you feel like you can pass for a kind of young dude. When you get in the shower you can also accept that this is the body you have; it doesn’t bother you. You just exist. 

Until Dave talks about wanting to finger you the next night, and then all that goes away. You don’t have the words to fucking explain it, you just start crying on Skype which just makes you angry. He keeps apologizing, and you can see how upset he is right before you end the call. Unfortunately for him, you don’t give a single shit. 

You feel fake and stupid and like you should just give in and be a girl; what the fuck is the point of it if nobody will see you as a boy. Okay, you reason with yourself, granted that Dave never said specifically that you were a girl, and probably he was just trying to work with what you have. That doesn’t make you feel any better, though. This trans shit is hard, and maybe you’re just being really narcissistic making yourself suffer like this. You could be a girl if you tried, you bet. Even if you’d feel like shit every waking moment, even if you felt like a fucking sham, you could be Dave’s girlfriend and grow up and get married and no, no kids, fuck that. 

You wake up Saturday morning to a flurry of texts about how sorry Dave is, and just what percentage of his ass you’re allowed to kick (110%) with your big manly foot. You feel a little better, at least, and you reply by telling him you’ll settle for no less than 120%. He’ll know it means he’s forgiven. 

The rest of the summer he doesn’t say anything nearly so direct again, although he still keeps pushing to find out what you like sexually. You learn plenty about him, but you don’t give him anything in return. There’s nothing you really have to tell in that regard, you don’t think. 

Moving in to your dorm is fast approaching, and you don’t think you can chalk up the way your gut twists when you think about it to nerves, anymore. There’s got to be something wrong with you. You’re plenty excited to see Dave in person, to hug him, to hang out with him, to talk to him without a digital middleman, but you think about the way he looks at you on Skype when he’s jacking off and you have to put it out of your mind. 

The actual process of moving is exhausting, even though you’re only taking a fraction of your stuff. Your dad puts on Cri-cri in the car, of all things, and at first you’re embarrassed because for fuck’s sake, you’re not five, but toward the middle of the trip you find yourselves both singing along to Papá Elefante, switching off on the father and son verses. 

It also takes way longer than you expected to actually get everything up to your room, enough that you keep checking the clock on your phone and reassuring your dad you don’t need help unpacking. The hug he gives you is long and tight, and you try not to be mortified when he puts a big wet kiss on your forehead in the lobby of the dorm building. You hug him back, try to be patient as you can to not rouse his suspicion—and because he’s your dad, and you do love your dad—and then he’s off on his long drive back to Washington. 

You have an hour and a half until Dave’s flight comes in, and you’re pretty sure you feel like vomiting. With excitement. And everything else.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dave's here!! and aren't we all very excited, john?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this was way longer than i expected it to be especially considering the notes i did for it while i was at work didn't even take up a whole page of notebook paper

LAX feels bigger and airier than JFK, although that might be just your natural bias against JFK airport. It feels _bluer_ , too, which is weird. You’ve been at baggage claim watching everyone else’s luggage but yours go by about a hundred times over for maybe half an hour before you hear your name being sung out from somewhere behind you. You turn around—

John bowls you over, arms wrapping tight around your upper arms, and you realize you’d been looking for someone taller. You try to hug him back and it’s real fucking awkward because the little shit’s got your arms pinned, but eventually he says _Oh, whoops,_ and releases you. You figure there’s been enough hugging, though, and you clear your throat as you stick your thumbs through your belt loops. “Yo, I was just expecting someone taller, is why I didn’t see you coming,” you say with a little grin, although you drop it when you see a frown flash across John’s face. Shit, should you have said that? Was that, what, insensitive? Can’t you just bug a dude about his height without it being a thing? You kind of hunch up on yourself before you realize it, and try to straighten yourself out. 

“Oh, well, you know,” he says with a big smile that kind of pushes all those panicky thoughts out of your head, “both sides of my family, it’s nothing but short men.” John shrugs. “It’s not my fault you’re some kind of freak of nature—” and he sort of stumbles, which is kind of vindicating “—at what, six feet tall at this age?” 

“Six foot one, short stack,” you inform him with a flick in the forehead, retribution for that ‘freak of nature’ comment. “Now come on, before someone thinks I’m kidnapping a little brown child.” Your suitcase comes right then, and you’re almost smooth in the motion of hauling it off the carousel. “Take me the fuck outta here, John Egbert.” 

He makes some snide comment about your very cheap-looking My Melody rolling suitcase, and you give him some snappy little comeback about how he doesn’t understand true irony, and how nobody would expect a fine-ass young man like yourself to be toting around Sanrio merchandise, that’s what makes it so perfect, _Egbert,_. It is partially the truth—your brother definitely approved the purchase. The other half is that you couldn’t really afford much better than a Chinatown knockoff, though, and they were out of anything boyish in franchise. (Not that Bro would have allowed you to get anything so straightforward, especially not for a visit.) Irony sure is helpfully malleable. 

The cab ride lasts well over an hour. John apologizes, says it’s apparently rush hour, and sort of the price paid for you having to catch a later flight, but you just shrug with a little smirk and reach over the squeeze his hand. His face doesn’t color the same way yours does, but you can still see the surprise and embarrassment in his face as he glances down and then looks away, his other hand jumping to cover his mouth. You try not to really think anything of it; you can see the cab driver glancing in his mirror at the pair of you. John definitely passes as a boy, even if he looks pretty young. You know you’d just get belligerent about it in a TLC cab, but you don’t know this city. You let go. 

The lobby is still abuzz with students moving in when you get to the dorm building, and you slip past the security desk easily, right behind John. And then you’re alone in the elevator. John presses a button, and stands soldier-straight next to you. 

“Took us this long to be alone together, huh?” you snicker, leaning over a little. But John just clears his throat, and points past his chin at the upper corner of the elevator. You look where he’s pointing, and find a little black bubble watching the two of you; it takes everything in you to not just go _Aw, who gives a shit?_. You have to remember John is kind of shy. It’ll only be a few more minutes, anyway, before you’re really and truly alone. 

The doors ding open and you follow him down a very narrow hall, past more students who range from idling in their doorways to racing to and from their piles of stuff. You get knocked into at least twice, but you brush it off this once. No need to make a fuss. You’re in a good place, with your man, right? 

There’s just one turn, and then he’s jiggling open the door to a really spare-looking room with a single bed, a single desk, a single window. The motherfucker’s got himself a single room. You could fucking sing. 

You swan past him with a whistle, and take a seat on his bed, which is the only thing that looks like it’s been paid any attention, already decked out in sheets and covers you know are John’s. “How’d you score yourself a single, you sly dog?” you ask, your grin just as sly. 

“Uh, my dad made some calls,” he says as he sits himself down in the computer chair. “I don’t really know if he outed me or not to the housing department, but either way I got ‘special treatment’ and got a room all to myself, even though I’m a freshman.” 

“So that’s good, right?” For a moment you hesitate, and then you go right the fuck ahead and kick off your shoes into the corner. At first you don’t even know what’s making you act so nervous, and when you do you don’t want to admit to it. 

“Well, yeah, plus it means nobody will rat me out for sneaking you in,” he replies, spinning a little in his chair. “Heheh.” 

Silence falls. If John were anybody else, you swear you would just jump off the bed and straddle him right in the chair, size differences be damned, but you can’t do that to him. For all that he’s a snarky little shit, when it comes to sex John’s always been kind of meek and submissive, and not in a way that means he wants you to take charge. You actually don’t know what to do. 

“You hungry?” John asks, breaking the silence, and not in the way you’d hoped. But you nod—yeah, you’re hungry, after a six hour flight and dealing with two hellish airports in one day. He hops up with a smile, and tells you to wait here while he runs to the cafeteria. (Easier than hoping the security guards will be just as uncaring when the two of you get back from eating. It means you don’t get much of a choice in food, but John knows what you like.) 

So you lie back on his neatly made bed, which you know his dad must have done because John is a slob, and you try not to think of the sex you will almost definitely be having tonight. You don’t even know how it’s going to work, but you don’t really care, and your dick definitely doesn’t give a shit. Maybe you can seduce John once you’re done eating, especially if you can convince him to eat up on the bed with you instead of at his desk, even though the latter makes more sense. 

You close your eyes, envisioning the scene. John won’t care if the empty food containers just fall to the floor, especially not if you’re pulling him down on top of you. Pants can stay on at first, you tell yourself. When you imagine the sensation of John grinding on you it’s kind of fuzzy because you haven’t quite divorced the fact that he’s a dude from dudes usually having a cock, and you have to keep reminding yourself it won’t be there. It doesn’t make John anything less of a man, you very deliberately think, even mouthing it silently. 

John shakes you awake, and you sort of jerk up, almost knocking the containers out of his hands. “Shit, how long was I out for?” 

“Uh, I only just got back, and it took me like, twenty minutes? I don’t know, how longer did you wait to take a fucking nap in my room, lazy-ass?” he snorts, handing you one of the styrofoam boxes and some plastic utensils. 

“Hey, it’s been a long-ass day!” you protest as you pop the lid, and find two slices of pizza slopped one on top of the other. “Dude, why the fuck did you give me silverware if you got me pizza?” 

“I don’t know how you weirdo New Yorkers eat pizza,” he says with another snort as he reaches into his own box for a small handful of fries, which he stuffs into his mouth all at once. “I hear’ once you eat tha’ shit wi’ a forg an’ knife!” 

“That’s Italians, dumbass, do I look fuckin’ Italian to you?” you retort, catapulting the little packet of plasticware at John’s head. He barely dodges. “New Yorkers eat pizza in movies all the fuckin’ time! You never seen Spike Lee movies?” 

“Yeah, but like, I’m not watching exactly how people are eating their food, that would be weird and kind of stupid,” John replies with kind of a smug look. “Eat your pizza, Strider.” 

You do, albeit still grumbling. It’s decent pizza, even if there’s something off about the dough that you can’t quiet place. All John’s done for food is literally fill an entire styrofoam container full to bursting with seasoned fries, and he’s brought along an entire soup cup full of ketchup. “You’re gonna die of malnutrition,” you drawl, and he just throws a (thankfully dry) fry at your face, which you impress him with by catching it in your mouth. 

“That’s a talented mouth,” he snickers, which makes you smirk. 

“Yeah, it is,” you say, licking your lips a little as you put your food aside. But John just stares at you, and then turns back to his fries like you weren’t trying to set a fucking mood just now. 

You give up for the rest of the night. 

Around midnight you find yourself trying not to nod off; for you, it’s three in the morning, and despite staying up much later than that all summer you realize part of what kept you up was having music to fuck around with, or at the very least a computer in front of your face with an internet connection. Interacting online can keep you awake for eons; not so with just sitting cross-legged on the bed with John, watching a Static Shock marathon he’s queued up on his desktop, monitor angled up toward the bed. 

“Don’t tell me you’re so sleepy so early, you fucking wuss,” John cackles with a sharp actual elbow to the ribs. You didn’t think anyone _did_ that anymore, John’s so fucking hokey sometimes. 

“Hey, look, like I said,” you grumble, “I’ve had a longass day! It’s 3am for me right now, and I’m used to actually doing shit to keep me awake at this hour!” 

“Alright, fine, I guess we can go to sleep,” he says with an exaggerated huff, sliding off the bed. You jump off in turn, and while he’s closing VLC and putting his computer to sleep, you open your piece of shit suitcase and start pulling your clothes off. When you pop your head out of the bottom of your shirt, you glance back to find John staring at you. 

“What, you like what you see?” you say with a waggle of the ol’ eyebrows, fingers just resting on the button of your fly as you turn to face John. 

“Well, yeah,” he says with an embarrassed little grin, blowing at the hair that wasn’t really in his face to begin with, “but you already knew that.” 

“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” you reply, taking one leisurely step closer, and another. “You don’t have to just look, you know.” You mark a little mental tally for how smoothly delivered that one was, and give yourself another mark for the fucking heat you swear you can feel radiating off John’s face with that remark. 

“Yeah, but I just, you know, I don’t wanna interrupt you getting changed for bed,” he says with a dramatic shrug. “You know.” 

“Changed for bed?” you snort. “John, what makes you think I sleep in actual pajamas if I don’t have to?” You undo your fly and drop your jeans to the floor, socks getting pulled off by the cuffs as you kick them away. “There. Boxers. I’m changed for bed.” 

“You didn’t pack _any?”_ He looks kind of incredulous, and suddenly you feel kind of exposed. 

“What, should I have? I didn’t think we were gonna be living like puritans, John, we’re dating in the 21st century,” you say, trying not to sound as defensive as you feel. 

“Wuh—well no, I’m not saying—Jesus, Dave, it was just a question! I didn’t ask if you brought a full blown matching pajama set, I just thought you might bring like, pajama bottoms in case you needed to hit the pisser in the middle of the night?” He crosses his arms and hunches his shoulders, glaring at the floor. 

“I don’t care if these fucking strangers see my ass in my draws,” you say, snapping the waistband of your boxers against your hips. “It’s a nice ass. They should be so fucking lucky.” 

“Ah. Well. True,” John concedes, finally looking up with a rueful little smile. The tension breaks in the room. “That’s some grade A ass.” When he comes to your side and actually squeezes an ass cheek it’s so weirdly fucking relieving you can’t even describe it properly, and with a wicked grin you reach down to grab at him in return. 

You’re left grabbing air, John skipping away from you like a fucking pixie. You try not to say anything about it, and you pull your hand over your face, trying to keep it smooth. 

In bed it’s a different story. Once the covers are up John goes from having a fucking forcefield around him to wrapping himself around you, nuzzling his face into your shoulder. You’re so fucking confused. “You don’t mind cuddling, or whatever the fuck, right?” he double checks, and you just nod quietly because if his leg moves one fucking iota he’s going to brush against your raging boner and you’re not sure he’s gonna like that, given how he’s taken everything else today. 

He falls asleep fast, ending up with one leg hiked up over the bottom of your stomach. It does end up sliding down to come in contact with your dick, but he’s passed out cold and you guess it doesn’t matter. Of course, now you can’t fucking sleep at all. You’re horny as fuck, but on top of that you feel like a creep. It feels like John doesn’t actually want you almost all of the time, and now you can feel the heat of his crotch against your hip, almost mocking you. 

You only manage a few hours of sleep, despite your exhaustion, and extricate yourself from John’s four-prong hold to throw yourself in a shower stall down the hall. You’re not a hundred percent proud to say you definitely jacked off into the drain, although hey, at least it’s a co-ed dorm, so you definitely won’t be the last to do so here. 

John takes you out exploring the next day, which is kind of a haphazard effort since he doesn’t know Pasadena all that well himself. The only public transportation available is the bus, which you don’t think much of. He pays for lunch, so you pay for frozen yogurt. (Neither of you can locate an actual ice cream shop.) 

The funniest thing to you is John trying not to goggle at the trolls that walk the streets of the city. He tells you earnestly that there are no trolls in Maple Valley, so he’s not used to seeing them at all, much less so many all at once. He almost believes your lie when you tell him you went to high school with trolls, too. New York has pretty much the full spectrum of trolls, but here you see mainly midbloods strolling around, with the occasional fish troll spritzing their skin and complaining about the heat. 

He’s fucking killing you at night with the sexual tension. You say nothing again that second night, but the next day it’s so hot out you just stay indoors. Alone. With John. Just the two of you. 

Your head is gonna fucking explode, and you’re not sure which head you’re even referring to anymore. 

“John,” you say with a sigh in the middle of National Treasure, which John has sworn up and down you’re only watching “for ironical purposes”, “do you actually fucking like me?” 

“What? Of course I fucking like you! I’m the one who asked you out, jackhole,” he says with a kind of pig snort. “Just watch the movie and stop bitching.” 

“I’m asking you right the fuck now, are you actually physically attracted to me, though?” you ask, ignoring his little command there. You sit up on the bed, gesturing at your body. “Do you actually want this?” 

John reaches for his mini remote and pauses the movie. “What’s wrong, Dave?” 

“What’s—what’s _wrong?”_ you bluster. “John fuckin’ Egbert, you’ve had me in your bed, alone, this entire fucking day and it’s like we’re just bros!” 

“I just, I’m not in the mood, I don’t feel like it!” he snaps, tensing up instantly. “Just because we’re dating doesn’t mean we have to be fucking like, every instant we can!” 

“But I _want_ to be fucking every instant we can!” you say, almost pleading with him as you shift onto your knees, arms extended. “I’m only here a few more days, John! I thought you’d wanna fucking take advantage of the time we actually have, and, you know—”

“Oh, so what, sex is like, the only meaningful interaction we can have as a couple?” John bristles. “That’s a real nice way of thinking, Strider! So I guess I’ve just been fucking annoying you with trying to show you around and have some fucking fun in a city you’ve never been in? We could fuck anywhere!” 

“No! No, we can’t, because I’m only here for a few more days and then who fucking knows when I’ll have the money to visit you again!” you bellow, and fuck, you didn’t mean to be that loud. You take a deep, shaky breath, sinking down a bit. “I didn’t mean to yell, shit. But seriously, John, like how fucking ugly do you find me?” 

“I just—I don’t think you’re ugly! At all!” he says, face screwing up and oh fuck is he going to cry? Please don’t let him fucking cry. “I’m serious, you’re just, you’re the hottest person I’ve ever known, and fuck, I’m so lucky to have you, I just—” He bites deep against his lip until it goes white under his teeth. It almost sounds like he was going to confess something, but it looks like he’s clamped down on it now. Shit. 

“Is—is it because you’re, uh, transgender? Because you know I don’t give a shit about that, right John?” you say, trying to give him a bright little smile. “You’re a dude, I’m a dude, we’re both super ultra gay together, no fucking question.” 

“Ha, oh, maybe,” he says with a nervous little giggle. “I know you say you don’t care, Dave, and I really do believe you, just, like, there’s my regular brain that’s totally on board, right?” John shifts to sit back. “And then there’s like, my caveman brain or something being totally fucking paranoid and just being like _nooo, he’s lyiiiing, he gives suuuuch a shit!_ And I know it’s totally dumb, but...” 

You put a hand on his shoulder that you hope is placating. “I mean, really, there’s only one way for me to prove to you that I like you no matter what, so...” You give a little shrug and a meaningful look. “You just, you know, you gotta let me, you know? It’s up to you, Egbert.” 

“Just to be clear, you _do_ mean sex, right?” There’s that nervous laughter again. “Because I don’t think I could handle whatever weird Strider bullshit you could think up otherwise.” 

“Nah, yeah, none of that ‘weird Strider bullshit’, I promise,” you say, leaning forward hopefully. “Just me and some good times.” 

“Alright,” he concedes, and Jesus fucking Christ you could fucking whoop with joy right now, but you settle for following through on that lean-in and finally kissing him. 

At first John is completely unyielding, and you’re not sure if he’s freaked out or just unsure of what to do. You start to pull away—he actually pulls you back, and makes a clumsy attempt at kissing in return. It’s halfway to adorable, except teeth are clicking and yet somehow that doesn’t dampen how fucking sexy it is to finally kiss your boyfriend. You’re hard in mere moments, and it’s not like you mean to push John down but suddenly he’s laid out under you, breathless with hot cheeks. 

He reaches for your crotch, pianist fingers brushing the length of your erection through your jeans, and it’s like a choir of fucking angels just burst into song. It’s not even that he’s touching you—it’s him _choosing_ to touch you, not having to be fucking cajoled. 

You crawl up a little bit so he doesn’t have to strain himself in reaching so far forward, and he makes quick work of your fly, gripping your cock over the cotton of your boxers. You bite your lip, huffing a little bit at the touch. He’s just exploring, now, thumb brushing up along the underside, and then over the ridges of the head. There’s a slowness to his touching that makes you go still, and you can sense it’s not really about you in this very moment, but you can let that go. You sort of have to. 

“Wait, shit,” you say, and his hand yanks away like your dick is on fire. “Hold on.” You hop off the bed, and take a few shaky steps over to your suitcase, where you dig around a little until you pull out a little bottle of KY. “Just...” You hold it up, and you can see recognition dawn in John’s face. 

“Oh, for your—?” he asks, not able to take his eyes off it. 

“Uh, yeah, I sort of, I mean not that I figured you wouldn’t have any, but you know, better safe than sorry,” you babble, coming back over to the bed. You hand him the bottle, which he looks at like a grenade, and you glance down. “You want me to take my pants off, dude? Or, uh, the rest of my clothes, too?” 

“What? Oh, uh, yeah, pop off those pants, dude, they’re not invited to this party. Heh.” So you do as he says, kicking your pants behind you, and you climb back into place over him. John pours the clear gel into one hand, a weird uncertain look painting his features, and he actually has the forethought to breathe on it, let it warm up a little in his palm before he slides the back of his hand past the waistband of your boxers. You almost don’t even realize you’re holding your breath until you exhale hard, rutting against John’s hand as his fingers close around your dick. You reach back to push your boxers down under your ass and off of John’s hand, and fuck, he’s really working you over; your arms get kind of noodly and your front half just sort of collapses on top of him. 

Five minutes later you come into his hand, and once the afterglow starts to lift you’re pretty fucking embarrassed. John reaches for a box of unopened tissues in the nightstand and as part of your penitence you open it for him, taking out a tissue (or five) to clean the lube and jizz off his hand. 

“Jesus fuck,” you mumble as you toss the soiled tissues into the blue plastic garbage can and pull up your boxers. “That was humiliating.” 

“What? Oh, no way, it was nice,” John tries to reassure you, and you shoot him a look. Was that—relief?—flashing across his face? 

“Nice? John, I came in five fucking minutes. It was nice for me for five whole minutes, and as for you...” You look down briefly. “I didn’t even touch you, man.” 

“Yeah, well, you didn’t really have time humping my hand like that, did you?” he snickers, and you sigh. Weird vulnerable John, which is the John you can pull answers out of you’re pretty sure, has been replaced with regular sardonic John. “Maybe next time we can make you last ten whole minutes.” 

“Fuck you, dude,” you groan, letting your face fall into your hands. 

“I pretty much just did, and we saw how that turned out,” he cackles. 

“Well still, what about you?” you ask, sitting back up. “I mean, I don’t... What do you want?” 

“To finish the movie.” And he ignores you to look for his computer’s remote, and hitting play. Nic Cage’s voice ringing out tells you the conversation is over. 

That night John makes good on his promise, spooning you from behind and sliding one hand over your hips to fondle you when you’re drifting off to sleep. He whispers _KY_ in your ear and you pass it to him in silence, but he doesn’t do anything with it at first, just holding your dick loosely in his hand and occasionally smearing precum over the head. It actually seems like he’s going to fall asleep like that, with your cock fucking aching from the way he keeps stimulating it every time it shows even a hint of flaccidity. Then his hand darts away, comes back full of cold lube that warms quickly with how quickly and firmly he strokes you. When you come, he whispers _Fifteen minutes_ with a little snicker. You can’t believe he was watching the fucking clock. 

But even with his newfound exuberance for playing with your dick, John won’t let you touch him. You try to broach the topic in the middle of another handjob, as breathless as you are, “Please, John, I just want to make you feel good,” and he just fucking shushes you. 

By the time he sees you off at LAX, you haven’t touched him once; you don’t even kiss goodbye. He says he’ll miss you; you manage to keep yourself from expressing how hard you find that to believe. You go back to New York feeling ugly and unlovable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh please leave comments/feedback, this fic is kind of... particularly important for obvious reasons if that makes sense? like in terms of hearing back from readers uvu


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> let's see what karkat thinks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha wow i wrote like, half of this over the course of several nights at work, and the other half just this morning but i was really into it so, here u go

The first time you meet John, you don’t actually ask his name—you read it off the nametag he wears (which also readers “Gurt Master”, whatever that’s supposed to mean). You’ve been assigned a new route working for UPS, and now you make weekly deliveries to the Pinkberry store this John guy works at. 

At first you think you just envy the guy. He’s got kind of a goofy charm, and his coworkers all seem to like him a lot, besides the one girl whose annoyed stares he seems to totally ignore. He’s always the one to accept and sign for the deliveries, and the first four weeks he keeps asking your name, always with an embarrassed chuckle and a “What was it again?” after the first time. You’re tempted to give him a different fake name every time, but every time you just mumble _Karkat_ and then shuffle back to your truck to hate yourself for being such a disaster. 

After your fifth delivery to the store you realize two things. The first is that you’re keeping count of the weeks by your deliveries to the Pinkberry. The second is that you don’t envy him. Okay, no, you definitely do, but it’s not the issue you have with him—there’s a lot of people you envy, and of course you’d envy the life of a charismatic, attractive human like John. 

And there it is. You’re fucking attracted to him. He’s slender, leggy with kind of small shoulders and an elegant slight curve to his hip. He’s a deep shade of brown that you like so much more than your drab grey skin, against which his blue eyes pop, and he wears dark curly hair much better than you do. You actually slap yourself across the face the one time you catch yourself just _thinking_ about his full lips. 

You take yourself home that night in full blown self-loathing mode. You live alone, which you like to tell yourself is how you like it, but of course every morning you wake up cuddling your pillow and god _damn_ but you disgust yourself. Your place is dumpy and pathetic, just like you. If there’s an adult troll shorter than you, you have yet to meet them, and you gave up on trying to not be fat years ago. You don’t know what you weigh but suffice to say you sometimes get your ass stuck in the seats at movie theaters. 

John is, of course, massively out of your league. Pretty much everyone is, really, but John may as well be on another planet. You like to daydream, sometimes, that John would have the magical ability to put up with what a cantankerous piece of shit you are. That he would even sort of enjoy it, take it in stride and serve it right back out of pure affection. You imagine that he wouldn’t find your body gross, that maybe he would like your soft rolls and inhuman genitalia. Maybe he would be one of those humans who wouldn’t write you off as a “freaky alien hermaphrodite”. Yeah. 

Keep dreaming, you tell yourself bitterly. 

There’s a few things you can be thankful for, you guess. It’s not every troll in California that has a car, much less a driver’s license to go with it. As inferior as you feel as a troll, there are a few benefits to being short and nub-horned. Your car is a red little eyesore, a 1991 Yugo GV that’s changed quite a few hands before it made its way to you. The interior still smells like the previous owner’s nicotine addiction, and the few people you’ve let ride in it have mentioned a certain skunky odor being added to that smell. It’s low to the road and you swear sometimes you can feel the asphalt getting ready to bite your ass. But it goes, so you go—to Terezi’s, tonight. 

When she answers the door she leans against the doorframe in her own idea of a pinup pose, tongue lolling out of her grinning mouth. “Oh Mister Mailman,” she coos, batting her lashes cartoonishly, “do you have a delivery for meeeee?” 

“I work for UPS, not the government,” you grumble as you push her out of the doorway and let yourself in. “Jesus, Terezi, it smells like a fucking nicotine plant in here.” 

“As if your apartment doesn’t reek of weed,” she scoffs, and you glare at her. She’s not wrong, but come on. “But hey, no, by all means, come on in and critique my living space! Do you like the drapes?” Terezi flings herself melodramatically against the neon yellow curtains, which hurt your eyes to look at even in this dim light. 

“I hate them,” you say, and you sigh as you take a seat. “Terezi, how do you get over being pathetic?” 

“I wouldn’t know,” she says as she slips into place next to you on the hideous bright floral couch. “Is it that boy again? The human one?” 

“The one and only,” you say with another bitter sigh. “I know I should just forget about him, and really, I’m fucking trying. But he’s on my goddamn route! I see him once, sometimes twice a week! And—shit, Terezi—” you bury your face in your palms “—I don’t even know like, what quadrant I want him in, I don’t know if he’d even _understand!”_

“He probably won’t,” she says matter-of-factly, pulling your hands down. “Just talk to him sometime, dumb butt. Ask him for some kind of contact info. Don’t be such a nerd about it!” 

“That’s the same stupid advice Gamzee gave me!” you groan. “Only his wording was a hundred percent stupider.” 

“Well, he’s _right,_ you know, you’re just being dumb and scared about it.” 

“Ugh, I don’t know why I even came to you for advice,” you grouse. “Just shut up.” 

“You can’t tell me what to do in my own home!” she squawks, and then she’s actually leaping up on the cushions with arms akimbo, hands sticking out over her hips. “Caw, caw! This is _my_ nest, _you_ shut up!” she shrieks at the ceiling. 

She actually chases you around the place, arms flapping, cackling between pseudo bird noises. You protest that it’s totally not fair, you’re a fat out-of-shape truck driver and she goes jogging before work, but she doesn’t relent until you’re wheezing out the word _uncle_. Terezi pushes you effortlessly onto her bed, and climbs on top of you with a grin bordering on the malevolent. 

When you were still a wriggler in the district, Terezi was all you ever wanted. Before you met Gamzee, you wanted her in pretty much every quadrant—and after Gamzee, your bloodpusher still pounded red and black for her. But you were stupid and possessive and fucked it up completely, and you had to make yourself get over her to preserve the friendship. 

So now you just look up at the troll straddling you and say, “Terezi, you _have_ to give Ryan Gosling a second chance, I brought some really good DVDs—”

“Gross!” she laughs, tumbling from atop your body to land next to you on the bed. “I’m not watching your stupid movies.” 

“The Notebook is a heartwrenching piece of—”

“Of shit,” she snickers. 

“—Of art!” you finish with an indignant little noise. “Jesus fucking Christ, though, I should have known you’d have no taste. Look at your horrible curtains!” 

“You leave my curtains alone.” Terezi flops one arm out to sock you in the gut, winding you. “I’m not indulging your unhealthy obsession with that man!” 

“And why the fuck not?” you want to know, still coughing a little bit and rubbing where Terezi hit you. “It’s not _unhealthy_ , for one, and for two it’s not an obsession! I just think he’s a good actor and a great guy that you’re dismissing way too quickly only because he’s currently relevant in pop culture! Plus, I mean, he _is_ fairly attractive—”

“And human,” she interrupts, nudging your leg with hers. “You’re getting earthling fever, aren’t you?” 

“I’m getting what?” You hear the word _fever_ and slap a hand to your forehead before you can stop yourself. “I mean—fuck! Shut up!” 

Terezi laughs herself sick while you try to salvage your dignity; it doesn’t really work out. You eventually leave the bed to get started on the real reason you came over tonight, which is to play Magic: The Gathering for the rest of the night. Every time you lose you huff that you were only humoring her by playing with her at all. (You both know you’re lying.) Between your visits to Terezi’s you spend an embarrassingly high number of hours reworking your deck, trying to build it for Terezi’s defeat, but it never matters. Even when it looks like you might finally win, she pulls the rug out on you and you suspect it’s just her toying with you. She certainly won’t cop to it. 

When you leave for home it’s way later than you meant for it to be, but it also means there’s not really anyone else on the road as you make your way back. Maybe you _should_ tell John. Next week when you see him, you decide. Yes. You will definitely not be a huge coward and back out of at least asking for John’s contact info. That is definitely not a thing you will do. 

Except you totally do. You trudge into the store with your squeaky-wheeled dolly, and when John comes jogging up to you with a big friendly smile and asks how you are, you just nod and grunt at him. Like the pig you are, you can’t help but think later. He looks fairly nonplussed, which you suppose is the best you can really hope for, and pass over the stylus so John can sign for the shipment. 

You hate yourself so fucking much. 

The next day coming into work you’re so caught up in your own mental loop of self-flagellation and how to not fuck it up next time that at first you don’t hear your boss calling your name. 

“Vantas!” he shouts again, and this time you snap to attention. Your supervisor is a burly white man with not much hair on his head and plenty on his face. “Didn’t you hear me the last four times I was trying to call you over?” 

“Uh, no sir,” you say as you drum your fingers nervously on the shelf in your locker. “What do you need?” 

“Yamamoto’s taking over your current route,” he says, thumbing over his shoulder at your coworker in question, who flashes you a pitying look. 

“What—!” You grab handfuls of your hair, taking a deep breath. The last thing you need is to yell at your supervisor. “But I mean, Mike, c’mon! I’ve been on that fuck—on that route for like, not even two whole months! Six weeks? What gives?” 

“Well, you see,” Mike says as he scratches the back of his head, “we’ve been getting a lot of complaints.” 

“About what!” You’re pretty sure you can feel individual strands pulling out. “I’m on time for all my deliveries! I give them the pad to sign! What more do they want?” 

“I’ve been getting reports of you getting an attitude when packages are missing from deliveries, which is already sloppy work.” Mike plants his fists on his hips. “And the other issue is you’ve been late to half your deliveries every Wednesday! After you hit the Pinkberry in Pasadena you’re like half an hour off!” He shakes his head. “Look, I know places like that hire cute girls a lot, but you can’t be spending time chatting them up on _my_ time.” Mike taps his watch for emphasis. 

“I’m not—” You bite your tongue. You don’t chat up John—you _wish_ you had that kind of courage. You don’t even know where the time goes—but you’re pretty sure you end up just moving slower after seeing him, daydream speed. That’s your only guess. “It’s traffic!” 

“I’ve never had anyone else have that issue with that route. Look, Karkat, I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is. You think you can shape up for me, man?” 

“Yeah.” You nod with a grimace. “Yeah, sorry Mike, it just...” 

“She must’ve been cute though, huh?” Mike says with a jovial clap on your shoulder, and when you look up at him he’s grinning down at you. 

“What? Oh, well, yeah,” you say with a shrug. 

“Well, look, just shape up and things will be fine around here. Go visit her on your time off, like you should have to start with, alright?” Another clap on the same shoulder, which kind of stings now. 

“Yeah.” Mike wanders off, and you slam your locker shut with an aggravated groan. 

You do visit the Pinkberry on your own time, but either John isn’t there when you go, or you get served by someone else, and it’s always busy because you can only go when everyone else is getting off work too. When he does notice you he doesn’t really recognize you in the rush, just takes your money and tells you to have a good night with a big smile. Your new route is actually kind of easier than the last, and you hit your marks with time to spare. Terezi says the time apart is probably for the best, and really, you should stop visiting him because you’re just hurting yourself. You know she’s right. 

Not even two whole weeks into your new route you explode at a Godiva employee who wants to know where a box of gold ballotins are, because they’re on the list she’s holding in her hand and nowhere to be found. She’s in the process of noting with an embarrassed giggle that she misread something when you explode. You curse her out, calling her so many names you actually have to stop for a breath. You feel like shit when she starts crying, and her manager comes trotting out of the kitchen to ask you to leave, but it’s too late to apologize. You tuck your pad under your arm and flee into your truck. 

By the time you get back to the processing station Mike is waiting for you, and holds out his hands for the keys to your truck. You want to curse him out too, but you’re exhausted, and you turn them over without a word. 

It’s a miracle you don’t drive off the fucking road going home. 

You don’t even tell Terezi you lost your job. You do tell Gamzee, and for a while you do feel better after just talking to him about stupid shit, including his dopey suggestions for future careers, but once the call is over you melt right back into hating yourself. For the first few days you forget to bathe, or do anything except lie in a cloud of your own self-loathing; Terezi texts you when you miss your Magic night, and you just text back that you’re tired from work. You hate yourself worse for lying to one of the few people in your life that care if you’re still alive. 

On Wednesday you stand naked in the shower with the water on, which you decide counts as bathing, and put on the dregs of your clean clothes to drive out to the Pinkberry in the middle of the day. You park across the street and sit with your face on the wheel for ten minutes before dragging yourself out to go inside. Yamamoto will have already been here and left, and it’s confirmed when you see John’s coworker disappearing into the back with the last of three big boxes. 

Without tons of customers around to distract John, for once there’s some actual recognition in his eyes when he looks at you. “Oh, hey! You’re our old delivery guy, right?” 

You nod glumly, mumbling that you’d like green tea yogurt. 

“Oh, yeah, sorry, sure.” He gets your order started, and keeps talking as you point to toppings. “You got your route changed, huh? That’s too bad! The new guy is alright, though.” More nodding from you. “So this is what, your day off now?” 

“Uh-huh.” You dig into your wallet and pull out a ten dollar bill. 

“And you came here? Haha, jeez dude, didn’t you get sick of looking at my face after having to see me on the job for like, two months?” He laughs with a goofy snort, which also displays his buck teeth pretty prominently, but the laugh dies off when you don’t laugh with him. “Uh, anyway, here you go?” 

You are the king of terrible. You take your frozen yogurt to a table and sit down, and there’s just this stupid awkward silence that doesn’t get broken until John’s coworker comes bursting back in, and then John ignores you to talk with her. You even manage to hate yourself for finishing your yogurt, because you feel like someone who wasn’t a hog like you would have let it tragically melt. You throw out your trash and as you leave John barely acknowledges you. 

You sit in your car and you fucking cry. It feels like you’ve been waiting for it to happen, and you feel really fucking stupid doing it, but Jesus, you’ve never met anyone as bad at being alive as you are. There’s nothing you can do right. You’re so wrapped up in your self-deprecation, in fact, that at first you don’t notice when there’s knocking on your window. You sit up with a start, looking up with a dumbfounded face at John. You roll down the window in a hurry, wiping at your eyes. 

“Hey, are you alright, dude?” John asks, bracing his arms on the top of your car. “I—oh, Jesus, I’m sorry, were you crying?” 

“I’m fine. I’m fine!” you insist, just as your one sniffle turns into a big snork. Fuck. 

“I just need to know that you’re not gonna like, drive off a cliff, okay? Or I’d feel really shitty for letting you leave my store so upset. Heh.” He gives you a little shrug. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

This is your chance. He’s giving you a fucking opening. And if you’re not a complete scumbag, you’ll ignore it and leave him alone forever. 

“I lost my job,” you croak. “This isn’t my day off, I’m just fucking unemployed.” 

“Oh.” John looks like he wishes he hadn’t asked; this is probably a bigger problem than he was anticipating. “I’m sorry, dude, that’s total shit. Are you gonna be okay?” 

You nod. Terezi wouldn’t let you be homeless, you guess, and if worst comes to worst you might be able to spend your measly savings to go live with Gamzee in New York. 

“Uh, alright then. So, I work tomorrow, am I gonna see you around?” he asks, which startles you. 

“Yeah, yeah, I think I can do that,” you say with a frown, which finally transforms into a smile. “I’ll be around.” 

“Cool.” He flashes you a big grin that kills you inside. He gets off your car to go walk back to work, and you rub at your eyes a few more times before starting the engine and driving back home. 

Things still fucking hurt—you’re still out a job, and you have yet to tell Terezi—but they don’t feel so bad when you hang out at the Pinkberry. John even tells you what days he works so you don’t waste gas, although you wait until you’re in the car to actually write it down so you don’t look like as big of a creep as you feel. You find out he grew up never seeing a single troll, and he actually laughs at your tentative joke that “Well, I grew up never seeing any humans, but now you’re fucking everywhere,” which just holy shit, destroys you. He asks a lot of kind of invasive questions and the more comfortable you get with him, the more you find yourself going off on him for those, but he just laughs it off and says he’ll try not to say stupid shit anymore. (You have your doubts.) 

One day he’s put on a closing shift, and he tells you he probably won’t have time to talk to you, but you go anyway. You’re pretty sure you’re at a point where you can just sit in the corner with John ignoring you and be okay with that, secure in the knowledge that he knows you’re there and isn’t annoyed by it. Yeah. 

The store is slammed; Saturday night and closing at 11pm means young people are crowding in, loud and obnoxious. You realize that not a single patron is a troll, though, and you try not to feel too nervous about it. Some of them are drunk already. 

“Oh my god,” you hear over your head, and when you look up it’s too late. A trio of guys that you’re pretty sure are supposed to be described as “frat boys”, dated backwards caps and all, are standing over you. It smells like they’ve been pre-gaming. “I found a, what, like, a mini troll!” You bare your teeth at them, even knowing they’re pretty pathetic in comparison to pretty much every other set of troll teeth ever, and they just laugh. 

“Jesus, a reject bug,” another one of them says, leaning against the side of the recessed door frame to trap you in the little triangle of space you’re sitting in. “Little fatass like you wouldn’t have made it on the home planet, right?” He chuckles when you swat his hand away from one of your horns. 

“Hey! Hey!” You hear John’s voice from behind them, and the frat boys part with a laugh for him. “I’m going to have to ask you three to leave, please.” He’s tiny next to them, chest puffed out and face set in a frown. 

“Yeah, sure, faggot, we’ll get right on that,” one of them snorts, turning his back on John. You can see the hurt flash across John’s face, even if you can’t identify some of it. 

“I’m serious! I _will_ call the cops!” he says, barely stammering, even though he’s pretty visibly flustered. 

“He said get out, pigfuckers!” you echo, and snap your foot out to kick the last one to speak in the shin. He curses and you know you’ve pretty much just fucked yourself over, but it was so worth it. 

Lucky for you, John’s manager comes over a scant second later, a stout woman with a loud voice who literally pushes the troublemakers toward the door. The one you kicked mentions as much, and John says he’s lying, which is enough for his manager, who shouts after them that they’re banned from the store. 

You wait outside for John to finish closing the store after the doors get locked later that night, and when he comes out, he lets out a big, relieved sigh. “Jesus, I’m sorry about those assholes.” 

“Hey, you defended me against them,” you say with a shrug. “It’s not your fault that jackasses like to get shitfaced way too early and make total asses of themselves in public. I mean... Jesus, I can’t say anything right. I’m trying to say thanks, okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He shivers in the cold. “Am I gonna see you Monday, Karkat?” 

“What are you, fucking asleep already? Obviously,” you snort. 

“Sweet. Alright guys,” he says, turning to wave at his coworkers, “see you later!” They say a return goodbye in almost-chorus, and he sets off down the street. 

“Oh, are you parked away from work?” you ask, jogging after him. “I guess it _would_ be harder to find parking around when you came into work today.” 

“What? Oh, no, I’m still saving for a car, and the buses already stopped running, so I just walk back to my dorm,” he says with an easy shrug as he stops and turns back toward you. “It’s no big deal.” 

“My car’s right there,” you say, pointing behind you. “I can give you a ride, jackass.” 

“Alright, fine,” he says with a shake of his head. He follows you across the street, and you’re still unlocking the car when you hear him ask, “So do you wanna maybe hang out tomorrow? I got my homework mostly knocked out, and I have a little time.” 

So maybe John’s not in any of your quadrants. For now, you’re pretty happy to have him as a friend. Maybe it means he’d hate you less if he found out that after dropping him off, you go home and masturbate to the thought of him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~when i end a chapter on a happy or sappy note it means trouble on the horizon~~
> 
> ok slight edit and now ive ended it on a pathetic note instead


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what are we gonna do with you, boys?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy festivus my dear little readers!! please take this gift that isn't as long as the last chapter but is still a decent length
> 
> i'm really nervous about this chapter though and just, please, if anything seems off or contrived or otherwise wrong please don't hesitate to tell me, i am not a dude
> 
> remember the dysphoria tags up there? please mind them
> 
> i also want to note ahead of time that john refers to "female orgasm" but that i personally do not agree with that kind of bio-essentialism! but also obviously not every trans person is blessed with the vocabulary to discuss their bodies in ways that make them 100% comfortable right off the bat, if that makes sense?? so uh

When winter break arrives, so does Dave at LAX. You find him at the baggage claim with a sturdy-looking bright red carry-on, an upgrade from the cheap little girl’s suitcase he had a few months ago. You wonder if that’s your fault for making fun of him, but you tell yourself nah, Dave wouldn’t be that sensitive about it. The old one probably just broke. 

You fling your arms around his waist, and as he leans down to press a kiss to the crown of your head—which is accompanied by a short joke, but you don’t mind this time—your anxiety about this second visit melts away. This is just right. 

You like holding his hand, too, as you walk out of the airport and wait for a cab. Your hand stays enveloped in his, out of sight of the driver, balanced on Dave’s knee, and when you glance at him he gives it a little squeeze. By the time you get to the dorm building, you feel like you’re glowing. (Your dad very sorrowfully granted you permission to stay the first few days of break in the city, “for the experience”, but he’s coming to get you pretty much right after Dave leaves, which he still doesn’t know about.) 

You take Dave out for dinner, during which you talk about a lot of things, including how college is going for each of you. Dave is going to City College, which means he doesn’t have to pay to live in a dorm, but he says it’s a long commute. It’s not that you don’t discuss these things online, but it’s different in person. He makes you laugh with sardonic stories about people around him on the flight, too, which he drags out with totally unnecessary nonsense. From anyone else, you think you’d be pretty annoyed, but coming from Dave it’s a charm point. 

Then you get back to your room, and once the door is closed you feel that looming quiet squeezing your gut. 

“So you missed me, right?” Dave asks as he closes in on you, slow and husky-voiced. The twinge of jealousy you always feel about the depth of his voice gets drowned in a rising wave of anxiety. 

“If I hadn’t missed you, you wouldn’t be here, so uh, no shit I missed you,” you say with a nervous giggle. “Don’t be dumb, Dave.” 

“Being dumb is more than a hobby, Egbert, it’s my passion,” he says, and shit shit _shit_ he’s putting a finger under your chin to tip it up, and those are definitely bedroom eyes. You swallow; you know what he wants. 

“Dave, I’m tired,” you lie, holding his gaze to make him believe it. His face falls, and you know he sees right through you. “I’m really sorry.” 

“Nah, it’s cool, I’m pretty tired too.” He’s probably not lying after a six hour flight. You feel guilty for the relief that washes over you. “I brought March of the Penguins, though, you wanna—?” 

“Oh hell yes,” you agree instantly. It’s not like you’re even that excited to hear Morgan Freeman narrate tragic penguin stories, and really action flicks are more your thing. You’re just glad for the diversion, and gladder still that Dave is giving it to you. The DVD he’s brought is a copy he’s burned himself, labeled in hot pink sharpie, and the quality suffers a little, but you don’t mind that much. You’re pretty sure you’ve watched worse. You pop it into your computer and pile your pillows against the wall to turn your bed into an almost-couch, and as the movie begins you pull the blankets over the both of you. He’s warm when you lean into him, and solid, and you relax as he slings an arm around your shoulder. 

But you know what he wants. And you know that he hurts. 

Your hand slides over Dave’s knee, and he glances at you when your fingers brush his inner thigh. He says your name quietly, but you give him a little shush. You can hear his sharp inhale when you reach his crotch, but you keep your eyes trained on the monitor as you find the contours of his soft cock, which doesn’t stay soft for very long at your touch. 

“I thought you said you were tired,” Dave murmurs as his legs spread a little wider for you. 

“Second wind,” you reply, still just slowly tracing the outlines of his half-boner. Your fingers take their time with the fly of his jeans, and you feel Dave’s every shaky breath as the bottom of his belly presses against the top of your hand. 

“I didn’t know penguins turned you on like that,” he says, his voice wavering when your hand slips into his underwear and settles around his cock. “Or is it Morgan Freeman?” 

“Oh, all Morgan Freeman,” you reply. “I’m imagining you’re him, right now, that’s how hot Mr. Freeman gets me.” 

“Oh, so all black people are interchangeable, are we?” Dave snorts, but when you look up you can see that little half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Fine, John, I resign myself to be the prop for your celebrity fantasies.” He pauses. “I’d end that with a Morgan Freeman quote, but shit, I can’t think of any, or none that fit the situation.” 

“So just say one, who cares.” You’re kind of glad Dave is uncut, because it makes it easier to mess with him when he’s trying to talk, and you grin when you see his eyes flutter shut while you rub under the head of his dick. 

“I’m just saying, ‘this isn’t going to have a happy ending’ is totally the opposite of what’s going on here, or at least what I _want_ to happen here.” You start to pump him a little bit through his foreskin, and he throws his head back. “Pause the fucking movie, John, I can’t listen to God talk about penguins when you’re grabbing my dick...!” 

“You’re ruining my fantasy, Mr. Freeman,” you snicker, but once Dave goes kind of glassy-eyed you do turn off the movie completely. This time he’s the one to lay back, which gives you a better angle to jerk him off, as well as to grab the lube he’s so thoughtfully brought along again. You honestly don’t mind doing this, even kind of enjoy it; Dave gets so flushed and breathy, and it’s incredibly hot. You think you might even want to try blowing him before he leaves, although it might turn out to be another one of those things that you only like in theory. 

The problem lies in the way Dave begs you to let him reciprocate. The thought of him touching you below the waist makes you feel nauseous, but he looks so fucking upset and you don’t want to do that to him. Last time he left he didn’t contact you for two whole days, and you could smell the lie when he told you he’d just been tired. You knew it was your fault. 

“You can touch me just, just a little bit, okay?” you finally concede, biting your lip as you move your knees apart. “Through my jeans, though.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says as he tugs you down by the shoulder, which confuses you until you catch on that he wants to kiss you. “I’ll be a gentle lover, watch.” 

His hand slides between your legs, squeezing lightly between his thumb and palm, which doesn’t really do anything for you besides remind you of how huge his hands are. He leads the kiss because he’s better at it, like dancing—and then his middle finger is pressing in, against where your dick isn’t, and you gasp into his mouth, breaking the kiss. 

“Is that good? You like that?” he’s asking when you pay attention to reality again, and against your better judgment you nod. It’s not a total lie—yes, it felt good. No, you didn’t like it. Or well, you did, but physically, not mentally. You don’t know how to fucking tell him. 

And because you say nothing, he kisses you again, finds your not-a-dick again and rubs you through your pants until you’re fucking wet. It distracts you enough that your handjob has slowed down and lost its rhythm, but he hums a happy little note anyway when your hips buck into his hand against your permission. Your junk aches with the need for release now that he’s got you worked up, but you’re pretty sure you’d seriously rather just deal with imaginary blue balls than let Dave touch you any further. 

Except he looks so fucking happy underneath you, sincere and open. His cock leaks onto your hand, makes you think that maybe if you finish him off he’ll forget about “pleasing” you, or something. Maybe you can trick him into thinking you came, which is a bitter thought to swallow—most guys don’t know what female orgasm looks like, if it looks like anything at all, and well, that would be what you have. Fuck. 

You throw yourself back into the handjob, pushing your hips back just far enough that even Dave’s long arms can’t reach. You even push his shirt up to put your tongue and lips to one of those brown nipples you used to fantasize about, and it doesn’t take long before he’s arching into it with high-pitched little utterances of _Fuck, fuck, fuck_. He comes across his own stomach with his arms curling over his head, squeezing his eyes shut and grimacing through it, and when his eyes open again he looks lost. 

Not lost enough, though, because he comes out of his fog fast enough to say it’s your turn now. 

“I don’t, I mean, I already did!” you say, sitting back on your heels with a shrug. “I’m fine.” 

“But I didn’t do anything else,” he says, frowning. “Did you really...?” 

“Yeah, no big. I’m good.” You reach over Dave for tissues, and start cleaning off his stomach because you feel that’s the nice thing to do. 

“Why the fuck are you lying to me, John?” he demands as he tucks himself back in and zips up. You’re the one to yank down his shirt for him. “What the fuck, is the thought of me touching you so disgusting?” 

The truthful answer to that is yes, it is, but it’s not the answer you should give. “No, of course not,” you say with a shake of your head. “I’m just...” There’s no point in trying to continue the lie if it’s just going to piss him off more. “I’m still just, nervous I guess? I don’t fucking know, but I’m sorry, I’m not trying to like, make you feel gross or anything!” 

“Who me, feel gross? Because my own boyfriend doesn’t want my nasty freak hands on him? No way, why the fuck would I feel gross?” he spits, but the hurt look on your face makes him soften up. “I just wanna make you feel as good as you make me feel,” Dave says with a sigh. “That’s all I want. I promise.” 

“...Alright.” You unzip your pants, rolling onto your back so you can push them off your hips. It feels like you’re forcing it when you tell yourself you totally trust him, but come on, Dave would never intentionally hurt you. The excited look he’s sporting as he shifts closer to you is nothing to get freaked out by, John. 

Dave starts again with kissing, which is still nice. He’s still kissing you when his hand moves into the front of your boxers, fingers sliding through your pubic hair and between the lips of your junk. You’re still wet from when he worked you up before so there’s not much friction as his index finger finds your clit, rubbing circles. A mantra begins in your head that tells you it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay for him to touch that, it’s almost the same as a dick, it’s just what you have, it’s okay, it’s _okay_ —

His thumb replaces his index finger, which is sliding into you with ease, curling, beckoning inside you. Your hips snap forward of their own accord and you shudder. To him it probably looks like a motion of pleasure, but fuck, no, it feels so alien and wrong, and you whine in the back of your throat. “Dave,” you croak, but he kisses you quiet, adds his middle finger to the first. You’re still trembling, trying to bear this for his sake, when his other hand moves from the back of your neck to your chest. It’s almost hilarious because of course your fucking binder is on; it doesn’t matter how small your tits are, you _always_ wear it if you’re going outside for longer than a minute. There’s nothing to grope, but his thumb still manages to brush against a nipple, and—

—he’s treating you like a _girl_ —

—fingering you right in your girlish cunt, trying to feel up your girlish breasts, kissing you soft and tender _girl girl girl_ —

You break away and he’s still inside you, so you panic and punch him in the chest because saying his name didn’t work before. He swears in annoyance, _What the fuck, John?_ but his fingers are out of you, his hand off your chest, and for the moment that’s all that matters. 

“What happened?” Dave asks as you curl up in a shaky ball, thankful that at least you still have your boxers and shirt on. You’d feel a lot less dignified right now without them. “Did I hurt you or something, what the fuck was that?” 

“I just—” Your tongue feels thick and dry in your mouth, choking your words. “I can’t do it, Dave, I’m fucking sorry!” 

“Do what?” When you look at him he’s frowning, eyes dark and hurt. “Be touched by me?” 

“It’s not fucking _about_ you, you stupid fuck!” you yell as you reach down for your pants to start pulling them on. “You think you’re the freak here? At least you have a _dick!”_ You yank them up to your hips and zip up, but you’re so angry you actually fumble the button a few times before you manage to get it right. 

“I—what? I don’t care about that!” he shouts back, arms spread wide. “You could have a fucking squid down there and I wouldn’t give a shit, John, I like you just the way you fucking are!” 

“That doesn’t—” You pick up one shoe and almost throw it at his stupid fucking head, but you take a breath, and put it on instead. “It doesn’t matter what you think or care about, because _I_ fucking care, and _I’m_ the one who has to live in this body, Dave!” You snatch up your other shoe. “And you know what else? I didn’t have so many problems with my body until I asked you out!” you add, pointing at him with the sneaker in your hand. 

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!” He stands up too now, and looks down at your shod feet. “Where the fuck are you going?” 

“Somewhere else! I don’t know!” You throw your hands up. “To calm down, how about that?” 

“So what the fuck am I supposed to do then, just sit here locked in your room like a dog?” 

“Well—” You let out a big exasperated breath, but you don’t know what to say, because of course you can’t say yes, do that, but you don’t know what else he’s supposed to do. It’s not like he knows anybody in—

“Fuck it, I’ll just call some of my music friends in LA,” he sighs. “You go do whatever the fuck it is you need to do.” He pops on his ratty kicks and shrugs on his jacket, and is out the door before you can really say anything in return. 

You text Karkat as you flop back into your computer chair, asking him to come pick you up at the dorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK??? negative or positive, i thrive off feedback and also want to do better if i have done wrong


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> get in the yugo loser, we're going for a feelings jam

When John happens to text you, you’re Skyping with Gamzee on your day off from your new job delivering pizza, and the two of you are unbelievably lit. Gamzee himself is still district-bound a good year past the minimum age for leaving, an opportunity most young trolls take to bail district life, but as the so-called prince to the hyena throne in NA5, he lives a semi-charmed life and has access to all the weed he wants. His is a stupid-looking giant purple dragon-ish bong, which suits him; yours is a little panda thing you thought was pretty cute. You tell anyone who asks that it was just on sale. (It wasn’t.) 

“Ah, shit, is that that li’l human motherfucker you’re all into?” Gamzee laughs before he chokes on a cough or two. “Yo, what the fuck’s it say!” 

You shush him like John might be able to hear him through the text itself somehow, and put your panda aside to pick up your phone instead. At first you actually just mash your thumb against the call button repeatedly, like the text is a call to be answered, Gamzee fucking tittering each time you say _Hello?_ to your phone.

can you meet me at my dorm asap?  
need a friend right now.

You accidentally read it out loud to Gamzee, who promptly loses his shit. He’s yukking it up and going on about how this is totally your motherfucking chance, and you close your laptop quickly to shut your moirail up so you can be alone with the message. You’re sure he’ll understand. 

Of course, right now you’re not so good to drive. You planned your whole evening around pot and Gamzee and Skype, but now here John is, practically begging for your company. Fuck.

GIVE ME 10 MINUTES  
AND I’LL BE THERE.

You’re not sure if that tells John you need ten minutes before you can drive, or if he’ll literally expect you ten minutes from now. You did your best, though, all things considered. 

Half an hour later you finally load your fat ass into the car, mumbling to yourself what a dumbass you are, what a festering _asshole_ you are. What if John were in trouble, and your stupid stoned reaction time had gotten him killed? 

When you arrive he’s not dead or even injured, just sitting out front, but he does look awfully annoyed. “Jesus, Karkat, it only took you a thousand years to get here in ‘ten minutes’!” he calls out as you pull up, jumping to his feet. “It’s goddamn cold out for California, I could have like, goosebumped to death, or something.” 

“So quit fucking whining and get your narrow ass in the Yugo,” you say, reaching over to unlock the passenger side door for him. “Or am I coming up?” 

John glances up at the building with trepidation, and then slides into the passenger seat so quickly that you’re still leaning forward and almost get bonked in the head. “Take me outta here.” 

“Any clues on where, or am I just driving around aimlessly like some old gangster movie?” You pull away from the curb, remembering to nag John to buckle up (because cops love to catch trolls on fucking _anything_ , you neglect to add). 

“Uh, we could go to your place?” he says with a shrug, sniffing the air with a puzzled face. “I’ve never gotten to see it.” 

“My place is a dump, that’s fucking why,” you say flatly. “Pick something else.” 

“I don’t really care, honestly. Just let me see it, dumbass!” He bounces in his seat like he’s actually excited at the prospect of seeing your disaster area of a living space. 

“Oh, so you can booby-trap the shit out of it? You can fuck right off with that idea, you sack of shit.” You left him alone in your car _one time_ , and somehow John managed to pack all kinds of stupid, spring-loaded, corny pranks into pretty much every corner of your car. Weeks later you’re still finding them, and every time you do you swear up and down John has to be your one true kismesis, because that would be the only thing to save him from you just outright doing a fucking murder. 

“Karkat! You wound me!” he says with a cartoony flutter of his lashes, pressing a dainty hand to his collarbone. You don’t give him more than a fleeting look, partially to watch the road but also because it’s just so fucking dumb, and then he loses the pose and lets out a big hearty guffaw. “Christ, it’s good to be around you,” John sighs, sinking down into his seat. 

Your heart skips a beat, skips another, leaves you dizzy. 

Despite your misgivings you take John back to your crater of a home, trying very hard not to think about the fact that the only place currently clean enough to hang out is your bedroom. You don’t even have to remind yourself that you’re hideous, possibly the most undesirable creature to have ever spawned on this miserable dirtball. There’s no danger of anything amorous happening. 

“Holy fuck, what is that smell?” John shouts as he enters your hovel, taking a step back, and you’re about ready to punch him out of pure shame before he clarifies, “It’s like, kind of fresh and stale at the same time?” You realize he’s talking about the lingering scent of weed, and you snort. 

“John fucking Egbert, are you telling me that not only have you never met a troll before coming to LA, you’ve _also_ never smelled weed before?” 

“Marijuana?!” John yelps, giving a little jump, and you laugh so hard you bend in half and actually slap your fucking knee. “Jesus, Karkat, you do drugs?” 

“It’s a little pot and it doesn’t hurt anyone,” you say with a pointed look. “And honestly, some days it’s the only fucking way I can stand being me, so I don’t want to hear a single _syllable_ about it.” 

“You really shouldn’t be so hard on yourself like that, Karkat,” he sighs as he rocks back on his heels and looks around. “You’re a nicer guy than I think you’re willing to give yourself credit for.” 

If only he knew what a degenerate you really are, what an amazingly worthless sack of shit. If he could see into your brain and see the depraved shit in your thoughts, he’d be quick to take back that little compliment, as well as your friendship. 

“So,” you say as you lead John into your bedroom and clear space on the bed by shoving everything but the laptop onto the floor, “what happened to make you get all cryptic on me in that text, that I had to put my stoned-as-fuck self behind the wheel to come get you?” Truth be told you still haven’t come down all the way, which is probably the only reason you agreed to bring John here at all. 

“Oh wait, you’re—you’re high, right now?” John asks with a startled look. “I... I guess you seem a little more mellow than usual?”

“You’re goddamn right I’m mellow, I’m so mellow you could probably set me on fucking fire right now and I wouldn’t give a single flying rat fuck.” You almost fall for the topic change, and then— “So no, wait, what was wrong, though?” 

He sighs heavily, his elbow digging into the side of his knee as he rests his cheek on his hand. “My boyfriend.” 

“Oh.” You know you’re flushing red, but maybe John won’t notice between your poorly-lit room and your bland grey skin. You should have known someone as fuck-off gorgeous as John Egbert would also be taken. At least maybe now you can try to move on. “What about him?” 

“He just—!” John blows an angry gust of breath into his bangs. “All he cares about is—is _sex!_ And he keeps pressuring me into it, and—” He glances your way. “Jesis, this is TMI, isn’t it? I’ll stop.” You realize he’s misinterpreting your blushing, and you’re content to leave it that way. 

“I mean, yeah, a little, but I honestly don’t give a fuck. I don’t even know what the fuck you have in your pants, so it’s not like I can even imagine it.” You’d probably try to stop yourself from doing so if you _did_ know, of course, or at least until John left. You have to keep your depravity in check. 

“In my—” John scoots away from you on the bed with a strained frown, hunching up. “What does that have to do with it? Why would you need to know which?” 

“What do you mean ‘which’?” you snap. “I said I literally have no idea. Like, for any of you tender-skinned bloodsacks.” 

“No idea?” he parrots, apparently bewildered by the thought of the human race not being the center of your troll consciousness. 

“Do _you_ know what I’m packing?” you ask, bracing your hands on your knees as you lean forward, giving John a sidelong glance. 

“No, I guess not. Heh.” You can see him relaxing as he leans back on straight arms. Of course he won’t even wonder about it. 

“Well look, my point here is not to talk about my own goddamn genitalia, it’s that you don’t have to worry about anything being too much info, do you see what I’m saying?” you say, jabbing a pointing finger into the mattress to emphasize your words. 

“Yeah, alright,” he says with another little chuckle. “I just don’t want to see him again tonight, but he’s staying with me, so I guess I don’t have a choice?” 

“Do you think you’ll stay together?” you ask, already sure of the answer; someone like John will always try to fix things. 

“I don’t know,” he sighs. You don’t think you’ve ever heard him sound so wretched. “When we talk online it’s mostly fine, like, we’ve been friends for years before I asked him out, but like...” John shakes his head. You don’t know what to do with yourself; giving advice is fine, but the way you want to hug the hurt out of him, knowing there’s nothing romantic in it, feels dangerously pale. He looks so lonely on the other end of your bed. 

“But what?” you ask, and you open your arms up anyway. John is crawling over almost instantly into that invitation, laying against you sideways. Gamzee would understand. He always does. 

“See, he lives in New York,” he says softly from under your chin. “So we’ve only actually seen each other in person once before this visit, and it wasn’t much different, I just, I don’t know, I thought it would be different for whatever reason? I’m so stupid.” This time when he laughs it’s bitter. “As soon as I’m alone with him he just turns into like, a fucking one-man porn script, like I can practically hear the cheesy _bow chicka wow wow_ music playing, only it’s not funny.” 

“Is he not cute or something?” you ask, feeling a little out of your depth. Your knowledge of human relationships only extends as far as its similarities to quadrants, and as far as you know a standard one is basically redrom—concupiscent. Hopefully you can prompt him into telling you exactly what the problem is, because so far you’re baffled. 

“No—no! No, he’s fucking beautiful, I’ve thought so since I was in high school!” You can feel him shaking his head. “Here, look.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and messes with it for a moment or two before thrusting it up into your face. On the screen is a photo of a pale brown human with close-cropped yellow hair, full pink lips and dark aviators, shirt draping nicely over lean muscle. Your heart sinks. You can definitely never compete, but then again you remind yourself that you told yourself you’d get over John. “It’s not that.” 

“You have to help me out here then, because I’m not getting it,” you say as he puts his phone away. “If he’s so gorgeous, and you’re in a concupi—if you’re, uh, boyfriends, what’s—” 

“I just fucking hate myself!” John blurts out, followed by more bitter laughter. You’re left in shock. “I mean, that’s most of it? I hate my stupid fucking body, like, more than ever since we started dating, and then the rest of it is just that the thought of sex makes me feel fucking sick! So the problem,” he continues, catching his breath, “is pretty much me! All me. I’m the problem, it’s me.” 

“Your _body?”_ You don’t mean to sound as incredulous as you do, but by troll standards John is physically perfect, his stature aside. “Because you’re short?” 

“I guess you can’t tell, huh?” he says, and you let him go when he pushes at you so he can sit up. “I’m, uh...” The way he trails off and bites his lip is making you anxious; you can’t even begin to guess at what he’s trying to tell you. “Shit, Karkat, don’t you have transgender trolls? You know, born in the wrong body, with the wrong junk?”

“What?” You’d been hoping for some kind of clarification and you feel more lost than ever. “John, we all have the fucking _same_ genital arrangement. I know humans are sexually dimorphic, but I thought it was just random.” 

“It basically is? I don’t know, let’s just forget it. I’m just stupid.” John flops over on his side, looking very much deflated. “This is just stressing me out trying to explain to you.” 

“Well excuse me for being a dumb ol’ troll with no education on your pathetic fragile human biology,” you snap. “Wait, no, scratch that, I’m being an asshole. Fuck,” you add as you clap your hands over your face. “I’m just trying to be a good friend and I’m failing spectacularly, as per fucking usual.” 

“Nah, you’re doing a lot better than mostly everybody else,” you hear as thin fingers pry your own chubby ones away from your eyes. “I didn’t want to talk to any mutual friends I have with Dave about this, anyway, it feels weird to tell them about my so-called sex life.” When you look down he’s angling to lean back against you, and you let him, thinking of Gamzee with fleeting anxiety. 

“My moirail is in New York, too,” you say very suddenly, even as you put your arms around John’s shoulders, and he glances up at you. “Well, sort of, anyway, he’s in New Jersey in the district still, but it’s close enough.” 

“What’s a moirail?” John murmurs. The way he’s relaxing against you makes you talk faster. 

“Sort of like... A soulmate? But platonic, or mostly anyway, and kind of still intimate, like red ro—like your relationships, without the sex.” You drum your fingers nervously on John’s collarbone. “We do stuff like this, or we’re supposed to, anyway.” 

“Do you have problems with your moirail?” 

“Gamzee? Ha, oh, definitely not,” you laugh. “He’s a dumbass to the nth degree, and he barely takes care of himself, but we talk all the time, especially on Skype. We were doing that when you texted, actually. We just... We can’t visit each other, so we’ve never gotten to do the physical pale stuff.” 

“...You mean like this,” he says quietly, although he doesn’t move. “Is that what brought him up?” 

“He’d understand,” you mumble, and you didn’t even mean to say it but John catches it anyway. 

“Understand what? I mean, is this like cheating for you? Oh my god, am I making you cheat because I’m being culturally insensitive? Shit, I’m sorry, Karkat!” He’s wiggling away from you, and you let him but you shake your head. 

“It’s fine, I mean... It’s not important.” 

“But what’s he understanding?” Fuck. John is like a fucking dog once he gets an idea in his head, with no fucking clue how to drop it. “You can’t just _say_ stuff like that, Kar!” 

“I—” You almost say it. _I like you. More than that. John, I adore you, I have since I first saw you, and you’re fucking perfect. Even though you’re fucking irritating sometimes, and not actually perfect. I would die to be with you._

“Karkat!” 

“I fucking—ugh, how the fuck am I supposed to say this? I _have_ to now, since you’ve fucking cornered me like a rabies-ridden mutt, and you don’t know how to let something go worth a damn—”

“—Oh. I mean, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” When John looks down he looks surprised at how far forward he’s leaning, and he sits back. “You don’t have to tell me, I guess that’s private. Sorry, that was a dick move.” 

“I think you’re fucking fantastic,” you mumble into your hands, which have retaken their position over your features. “I’ve had this stupid wriggler crush on you since I started delivering to your store, and it makes me feel like such a douchebag, but hey!” Your hands fly away as you sit up, a big ugly sarcastic smile splitting your face. “It’s out there now, so fuck it! I’m a big fucking creeper. There it is. John Egbert, I think I adore you, and I hate myself that much more for it.” 

And of course it goes dead silent. John actually looks fucking _horrified_. You want to sink into the floor and right to the hellish core of this planet. 

“Now you know I’m a creepy piece of shit,” you sigh, clasping your hands together. “Don’t worry, no matter how much you end up hating me, I’ll hate myself even more. It’s one of the few things I’m good at. And just because I feel the way I do, it doesn’t mean I expect you to like... consider it, much less reciprocate, especially when you already have a hot boyfriend, or whatever you call him.” You can’t bring yourself to look at him. “I’d honestly rather you forget I said any of that.” 

Until, of course, the silence is broken by his phone chiming, and you look up as he pulls it out and frowns at the screen. He takes a few seconds to read, and then throws the phone down on the mattress, where it bounces and disappears into your pile of mess down the side of the bed. (So much for John’s phone, then.) “Asshole!” 

“What now?” you ask, grateful and depressed at the same time that it’s like your stupid confession never happened. 

“He says he’s going to stay with some friends in the city tonight, since obviously I’m having ‘issues’,” John spits. “Issues! Fuck him!” He huffs as he crosses his arms, scowling, and then after a moment his face softens as he turns to you. “Karkat, uh... Would you mind if maybe I just... Can I stay here tonight? I just...” He chews his lip. “I can’t deal with that bed tonight.” 

“You’re already here, why the fuck would I turn you away?” you say, rolling your eyes. “You can have my bed, the rest of my apartment is a fucking mess that only I deserve to be forced to exist in.” You’re already up and walking toward the door, planning to excavate the other half of the couch so you can lie on it later. 

“There’s room for two,” John says, patting the bed, which is basically true of your standard double mattress. 

“Didn’t you hear my whole shpiel back there? Aren’t you creeped out?” you ask from the doorway. 

“Not really.” He shrugs. “You said you wouldn’t make me do anything, and I mean... Honestly, so far you’ve been way more respectful than my own boyfriend, you know?” He smiles, the bastard. “I trust you. Don’t worry.” 

You want to tell him that it’s not just that, but your pain is no one’s problem but your own. You keep your ugly trap shut. 

Getting into bed with John later that night after watching one of ABC Family’s endless showings of a Harry Potter movie (in this case, Chamber of Secrets) is one of the weirdest feelings you’ve felt in a long time, maybe since you first saw a human in person instead of on your shitty black and white TV in the district. When he comes out of the bathroom it seems like he’s only taken off his pants, shoes and socks, but he’s got some extra garment hanging from his hand that he stuffs at the center of the fabric ball his jeans make, and his chest isn’t as much of a flat plane as it usually is. You’re not going to try to understand. 

“Karkat,” John whispers in the dark to your back as you’re beginning to drift off. “I’m sorry, for before.” 

“For what?” you say with a yawn. “John, just go the fuck to sleep.” 

“For ignoring what you said. I didn’t mean to embarrass you, I’m just a huge asshole. So, I’m sorry.” 

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” you mumble. “Come on, John, I’ve got work tomorrow.” 

“Can I ask one more thing, then?” You can feel him shift closer. 

“Jesus, you couldn’t have asked this shit before when I was actually awake?” 

“How’d you meet your, uh, moral?” 

“Moirail,” you correct him automatically. “What are you so curious about?” 

“Sorry, forget it,” he says, and you sigh as you roll your eyes for the millionth time tonight. 

“Online, obviously. The only place someone as pathetic as me could find the courage to actually make a pale proposition to another living, breathing being.” You flop onto your back so you can actually look at John. “I met him through some other lowblood friends, who met him in turn through friends they made when they moved to New York. Nobody really knew him that well, but you know, for a hyena—”

“A what?” John interrupts. 

“A highblood, with the whole creepy murder clown religion, they’re mostly in that area.” You wave it off. “But whatever. I’m saying that for a highblood, and really for most people, once we started talking he just took all my shit in stride, it was fucking amazing. _Actually,_ ” you say, holding up one finger, “at first it was fucking infuriating, because I thought he was either making fun of me or just stupid, but it turned out he was just, I don’t fucking know, actually interested in friendship? He’s mostly pretty lonely in the district, and I think the only thing keeping him from leaving is the asshole who spawned him.” 

“Harsh.” 

“Shut up, John. Anyway, he’s a mess, and I found myself wanting to take care of him, especially when he’s come back to the computer all upset about who the fuck knows what, so I got myself really fucking blasted and asked him if he wanted a moirail. And we lived happily ever after, more or less.” You scowl at John. “Now will you go to sleep?” 

“That’s adorable,” John says with a big grin, flicking you in the nose. “You big mama duck!” 

“I’m a what?” you splutter, but he just laughs at you. 

“Would it be weird for you if I asked to cuddle and said you could pretend I’m Gamzee? I just feel weird lying off to one side if I’m sharing a bed, which I probably should have mentioned before...” He looks thoughtful, but not a bit regretful. 

“Yeah, right, Gamzee is eight feet tall plus horns,” you snort, but you motion him over and he drapes himself over you with a giggle. You don’t know anymore that Gamzee would understand, because you’ve given up on John Egbert romantically, but you don’t know what to do other than this. 

In the morning you drive John back to his dorm, and half a block away he starts yelling out the word _STOP!_ As soon as you do he’s already been unbuckled and is racing down to a certain tall, yellow-haired figure standing in front of the dorm building. You can’t hear anything from here but you can see that Dave is already hostile, and John responds in kind. They’re definitely shouting, and Dave’s anger is making you nervous, but you don’t know what to fucking do. 

John comes running back to your car, angry tears in his eyes, and as he jumps back into the passenger seat he just tells you to fucking drive. That much, you can do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as ever your feelings, general comments and questions are greatly appreciated and incredibly welcomed so whatever's in your head please tell me


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last chapter was getting way, way too long for decent pacing so i just split it and i'm putting up this first half while i work on finishing the end, and i think that was the right decision

You spend the rest of the day with Karkat, who is an amazing salve to Dave’s bullshit, crankiness and all. You end up going out to a matinee for a movie that’s been out for a while, so you’re alone together to comment on it, incredibly loudly in Karkat’s case. You keep forgetting you probably shouldn’t lean on him the way you keep doing, because of his moral thing. Moirail. Right. 

That, and you don’t know how to deal with his confession last night. Technically, there’s nothing to deal with anymore—Karkat said he didn’t expect anything, and he’s been acting no differently from his usual animated, cantankerous self. He dropped it himself. But you can’t get it out of your head. 

When Karkat drives you back to the dorm, Dave isn’t there, and neither is his suitcase. The spare you had made of your room key is sitting on the desk, looking about as alone as you suddenly feel. 

You text Karkat and ask if you can spend one more night, please, you won’t ask again. He says yes immediately. 

In the morning you wake up smushed against Karkat’s ample back, and you just huddle contentedly into his warmth for a while. It almost braces you for the impact of what you find when you roll over and pick up your glasses and phone.

john please dont do this to me

You stare at the phone incredulously, not even budging when a waking Karkat almost squashes you before he remembers you’re there. “To _you?”_ you whisper to yourself, frowning while the phone dims. To him? To _him?_ As if you’re not the one who had something like a panic attack in bed, as if he doesn’t keep pushing this crap on you because of his feelings, and fuck your feelings. It’s all the proof you need he doesn’t understand how he hurt you. You press a random key to bring the phone back to life, and then hit Reply.

it’s over. i can’t handle this anymore.

A few seconds after you hit send your phone is buzzing nonstop—

no

john no

duck

i mean fuck

autocorrect

john please im sorry

—and you turn your phone off, already blubbering like the big baby you know you are. You can’t even laugh at Dave’s stupid autocorrect. Karkat is already sitting up, grabbing your phone from you as he shoves a box of tissues in its place. He takes your glasses, too, when you keep smashing them against your face every time you wipe at your eyes, folds them carefully and leans over you with just as much care to put them on the nightstand that’s only on your side of the bed.

“Who the fuck does he think he is!” you fume through your tears and blindness. Karkat just pulls a tissue out of the box and drops it over your wet face, which confuses you enough to quiet you down for a moment. 

“An unappreciative asshole is what he actually is, but I’m pretty sure what he thinks he is is the victim in this situation, for whatever arrogant, fucked up reason,” he says, as you feel the mattress dip and spring up. He’s getting up. You pull the tissue from your face, then blot at your eyes with it. 

“Where are you going?” you ask the grey blob identified as Karkat, squinting despite knowing the uselessness of it. 

“To get you water, numbskull. You’ll feel better if you have something to drink.” 

“Oh. Alright, then.” You didn’t even realize you’re craning your whole upper body up until you let it fall back. While Karkat’s out of the room, though, you snatch up your phone and glasses, and turn the damn thing on. There’s more texts from Dave to the same tune, empty apologies and pleading, and you pick one at random to reply to.

you left without saying goodbye, and  
i’m the one who’s ‘doing this’ to you?  
what the fuck is wrong with you?

You know you should just leave the phone off. Karkat will be mad if he sees you texting again, and he’ll be justified in his anger. Dave is quick to answer:

you made it absolutely fucking clear  
yesterday morning you didnt want to see me  
so i went to stay with my friends instead  
to fucking spare you the agony of my presence

You’ve never hit Reply so fast.

are you listening to yourself?  
agony of your presence?  
what are you, 13? get over yourself.  
it’s not about you anymore.

You swear to god you’ve never met anyone so self-victimizing as Dave fucking Strider. He’s fucking infuriating, with the way he somehow turns every complaint against him into an all-out attack, the way he always finds a way to feel sorry for himself when the biggest fucking problem he has in this relationship is not getting his dick wet enough. You punch the pillow right as Karkat comes back with the glass of water.

“I thought I took that hellbox away from you,” he says as he plucks it from your hands yet again. “Did you turn that thing back on just to text that asshole some more?” 

“Yeah,” you mutter, accepting the water with a sullen face. 

“Well, fucking _don’t_ ,” he commands, as if it’s that simple. And yet you find yourself putting the device aside, cradling the glass with both hands. “It’s pointless. You’re both angry right now, so wait to cool the fuck off, like sane human animals instead of rabid wolves, and you’ll end up working it out—”

“I told him it’s over,” you croak, interrupting. 

“You what?” Karkat actually looks _winded_ by your admission. “Wait, I’m sorr—you what?” 

“It wasn’t going to work out,” you say, tossing your open phone Karkat’s way. He picks it up, scanning the screen as he mouths the words, and then he rolls his eyes, passing the phone back to you. You don’t take it back, and he just drops it awkwardly on the sheets between you. “All he cares about is sex, so I don’t know why he’s so hellbent on getting it from me when he could get a—get a _real_ guy for that instead of just, you know, making me feel even shittier? Ahaha...” You press the heels of your hands up under your glasses before you start crying again. “Ahh...” 

“Well, obviously your mind is made up, and I can’t tell you what the fuck to do,” Karkat huffs. “Whatever. You’re better off, every time I hear about him it’s negative.” He gets up again, this time to unearth his laptop and plop down next to you. “You wanna meet Gamzee?” 

You’re not sure what you were expecting, but it wasn’t that. You’re surprised enough that you just nod your yes, and you’ve never seen Karkat _ever_ beam that bright, you don’t think, as he opens up the laptop. 

You expect Gamzee even less. He’s filthy, honestly, hair matted and cut in random, ugly chunks. The collar of his t-shirt looks practically eaten away with wear, and the only thing about his appearance that looks at all like it’s received any recent care or attention is the gray and white clown face paint he wears, but even that looks caked on, like he never washes it off, just keeps piling it on whenever it gets smeared. You briefly wonder how he smells, before you figure you’d rather not ever know. 

Still, you see a different side of Karkat. Sure, he’s pretty nice to you, more than anyone else you’ve seen him interact with before now, but when Gamzee’s surprisingly smooth, deep voice rings out of Karkat’s Acer, Karkat’s practically glowing as he leans in to greet him in return. 

“Yo, ain’t you cleaned up that mess you call an apartment yet?” he chuckles. You have to admit that if you never had to look at Gamzee, you might find attraction in those dulcet tones. 

“Oh, fucking hypocrite!” Karkat laughs, gesturing at the dilapidated... area, you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking at here, behind Gamzee. “When you live in that crapshack?” 

“Ain’t no point in cleaning up my crapshack,” Gamzee snorts. “But I bet you got a real nice place under all that jumble and mumble, Kar.” 

“Probably not, I mean it is _mine,”_ Karkat returns. Just watching him interact with Gamzee pulls a giggle out of you, which apparently reminds Karkat why he opened the laptop in the first place. “Oh! Fuck. Gamzee, I want you to meet someone, and don’t embarrass me any worse than you always do.” He pivots the computer toward you, and you wave emphatically at the troll you see all the clearer on the screen. Christ, he really _is_ dirty. He looks underfed, too, despite there definitely being evidence of developed muscle on his frame. “It’s John, asshole.” 

“Oh, motherfuck! Congratu-fucking-lations, man!” Gamzee whoops, throwing his arms up, and you and Karkat both look at each other in confusion. 

“Congratulations what?” Karkat asks, because suddenly you’re embarrassed of your voice, and he’s just faster to ask besides. 

“I...” Gamzee seems to be glancing between the two of you, eyes widening. “Aw, shit, did I get shit all turned upside-ways and wrongwise again? I’m always fuckin’ it up.” 

You have an inkling of what Gamzee was trying to say, especially when Karkat blushes dark and pissy, pulling the flat sheet over his face. It’s definitely about Karkat’s crush, which he’s getting over anyway, of course he would have told Gamzee about that. You’re not stupid. But you figure you’d better change the topic, as well as clear some other stuff up just in case. 

“Just so you know, Karkat’s totally not cheating on you,” you pipe up, or down, because you’re trying not to let your voice go too high. “He was just being nice to me for the past few days while I’ve been dealing with some bad stuff, like, making sure I’m okay and stuff! So you don’t have to worry about any of that.” 

When Gamzee looks at you, you know he’s on the other side of the continent, miles away from you and your very tender throat, but you gulp anyway. There’s something different in his eyes, more sharp than glassy, and calling his expression a “scowl” would be too civil a word. “The fuck do you mean,” he growls, “ _cheat?”_

The next thing you know you’re being ousted from the room by ungentle hands, and the door slams on your ass. You can hear Gamzee yelling something before the audio cuts out, and you don’t know whether Karkat has ended the call or plugged in a headset, but either way you excuse yourself to the clear end of the couch in the living room, and take a seat in Karkat’s well-defined butt groove. 

An hour later Karkat emerges looking flustered and a little sweaty, and he comes to stand in front of you, glaring down at you. You cringe right off the bat. 

“Why did you have to say that?!” he shouts, making you cringe again. “Don’t you have a fucking filter? Would you do that to a human? I just—aaargh!” He paces in short turns, holding his head. “It took me an hour to calm him down! Don’t you know a fucking thing about hyenas?”

“They’re, uh, animals native to Africa?” you venture with a little smile, hoping to cool things down with a joke. 

It backfires. “I fucking _told_ you, they’re the fucking highbloods, and they’re unstable pieces of shit! I keep trying to get Gamzee the fuck out of there so he can go on government meds to even him out, but fucking _no!_ No, he can’t, he’s got to stay and do fuck-all as far as I can tell!” You shift over on the couch and he wedges himself down between you and the arm of the chair immediately, chewing his knuckles incessantly. When you try to sling one comforting arm around his shoulder, he flings it off immediately, looking no less anxious. “Get off me!” 

“Karkat,” you say quietly, which doesn’t stop his gnawing, “look. I’m really sorry, okay? I obviously don’t know a whole lot about your culture, and I spoke out of, you know, ignorance. It was dumb. I’m sorry, and uh, I won’t do it again. I promise.” You reach tentative hands out to him. “You just spent an hour calming down Gamzee, and it was all my fault. And now I’m pretty sure it looks like you need calming down. Please?” 

He just looks at you for a moment, although turning his head at least gets his knuckles out of his mouth. “I just want to make you feel—” 

But the words echo wrong in your head, and you retract your arms with a shudder. “Never mind. I won’t make you do anything. I’m just sorry, okay? I’m sorry I did that, it was stupid.” 

Karkat leans against you suddenly, a solid warm weight against your arm, and you don’t do anything. “Whatever you wanna do.” And he actually does hug you, which you never thought would feel so damn good. Isn’t Karkat supposed to be the one crushing on you?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> get it together guys holy shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm going to stop trying to guess how many chapters this thing is gonna have because i keep coming up with new ideas at work and i feel like my original idea for the ending didn't do the story justice anyway
> 
> so, here, another (really short i'm so sorry) chapter before i go to work

Eventually you do have to go back to the dorm, and pack yourself a little bag of essentials, since you’ve still got clothes and other belongings at home. Your dad asks you in the car, with a jovial elbow to the ribs, if you had wanted to stay in the city for a special someone. You don’t mean to break down crying the way you do, nor do you mean to tell your dad almost everything on the ride back to Maple Valley. (Of course you omit the sex, even though technically that was the biggest problem. You substitute kissing, which doesn’t really work.) 

So your dad spends your winter holiday doing his damnedest to cheer you up, whether it’s just with good tamales or embarrassing you in front of your visiting cousins by singing Flaco Jimenez with the other older men of the family in his loudest mariachi voice. It works pretty well, honestly; you love your cousins, especially Jane, and you just don’t talk to Dave. There’s a little pang in your heart when you think that you’re not talking at all to your best friend that you’ve known since you were eleven years old, but then Karkat messages you and that hurt gets pushed back. 

You think about Karkat more than you expect to. He’s been a great friend for months, and he really helped to pull you through your breakup. But even that shouldn’t warrant thinking very much about him outside of when you’re messaging back and forth; he’s just your friend. 

He’s your friend who adores you, your friend who respects you, your friend who likes you not for what your body can offer but for you. You fucked up hard enough that you might have fucked up his one relationship, and he forgave you. You can be in his presence without everything getting sexualized to hell and back. You’re _comfortable_ with him. 

He’s your friend with cute cherub curls and kind of a cherub face, despite how angry he always looks. He’s your friend who knows what it’s like to hate the body you live in, even if it’s not quite the same issue. He understands you on a few levels so far, actually. He’s your friend who adores you. 

You might adore him back, you think as you text him for the umpteenth time that day. Even if you don’t entirely know yet what that entails, especially after Dave. 

It’s not long before you’re back to school, and back to work at the shop. You haven’t blocked Dave, but he hasn’t spoken to you, either, not since your last text to him. So you figure you don’t have to. You spend what spare time you have between work, school and homework with Karkat, and even get introduced to his friend Terezi, a midblood troll working as a paralegal who’s way into nerdy shit. She makes you kind of nervous, despite being both hilarious and fun. 

You think about Karkat more than you mean to. You think of how he kind of lights up when he spots you waving to him in his car when he’s come to pick you up from work, and of how he sucks on his first knuckle when he’s thinking too hard. You think of how taut and miserable he looks when he doesn’t know you’re there; you’ve seen how he interacts with others, and it really does make you feel kind of special that he can relax so well around you. 

It’s true that Karkat isn’t hot by most—well, really _any_ —standards, and it manifests in how touchy he lets you get. When you were in the midst of a bad breakup, there were no real limits; he was doing anything to help you feel better. But once you got back to LA he wouldn’t allow more than leaning on his shoulder. You tried to tickle his midsection once and he actually knocked you off the couch before running to his bedroom. (He apologized later for knocking you off the couch.) 

Your cousin Jade has gone to New York for mechanical engineering at Cooper Union, and she tells you on Skype she’s actually run into Dave in Alphabet City. You tell her you don’t know what Alphabet City is (a club maybe? You could see Jade clubbing just to try it), and that you don’t really want to hear about Dave. She just laughs and says she doesn’t understand why you ever dated him, looks aside. 

“What does that mean?” you ask with a confused frown, but she tuts at you with a wagging finger. 

“You said you didn’t want to hear about him! So I’m not going to tell you.” You try not to be too infuriated. 

You think about Karkat. A lot. You think of how you know what it’s like to feel violated by the existence of your own body, and how maybe you _could_ talk to him about that, and he would understand you. He would _understand_ you. You think of Gamzee’s assumption—and maybe Karkat’s moirail has just planted the idea in your head, but it’s taken root, burying itself in your brain and holding fast. You think that if you don’t say something soon those roots are going to start coming out of your mouth and you’re going to just blurt it out with the least elegance possible. 

“Karkat—” you start one evening, as the two of you sit on either end of Karkat’s couch, Karkat with his laptop and you with your phone, a single blanket draped over both your legs. Since you got back you’ve actually helped him clean out parts of his place, and you think he seems less grouchy for it. 

“What?” He doesn’t look up from his screen. 

“Never mind.” 

EB: i can’t do this. i feel too stupid. crushes are for high schoolers.  
GG: what are you so scared of, dum-dum?? doesnt he like you too?  
EB: i don’t know! that was a while ago. feelings change, obviously.  
EB: plus what if i’m just lonely?  
GG: lonely? :/  
GG: oh because of dave!! duh  
GG: ummmm  
EB: i don’t want him to be rebound just because i want some affection. that’s a shitty thing to do.  
GG: just ask him, you nerd!!  
EB: fine, geez!

“Karkat?” you try again. 

“Seriously, just spit it out,” he replies, still clacking away. “Whatever it is, it’s not going to cause the fucking apocalypse.” 

“Karkat. Uh.” 

“Any fucking day now, Egbert.” 

“What if we went out on like, a date? Just, you know. Hypothetically speaking.” You sink back into the cushions, twisting your hands together. 

Karkat’s head shoots up instantly, giving you a wary look. “Hypothetically?” 

“Yeah! Just, you know, shooting the shit. Hypothetically, would you be like, opposed to that at all?” you ask with a nervous laugh. 

“Are you fucking with me right now?” he growls, closing his laptop and putting it aside. “I thought you weren’t gonna be a dick about the fact that I fucking _confessed_ to you that I like you, when you were still in the middle of a breakup, but I guess I was wrong!” He flips the blanket off his legs and starts to get up. 

“Karkat, wait—”

“I mean, what, is it fucking _funny_ to you that I’m still trying to get over you, out of fucking _respect_ for you as my friend? Are my dumb non-human feelings a joke to you, John?” he shouts as he walks away from the couch, ignoring your protests. 

“No, I’m—”

“If you’re gonna fucking make fun of me, at least pick something else!” He gestures to himself with a wide-eyed grimace. “I’m fucking _rife_ with shit to make fun of, John, take your fucking pick!”

“Okay, fuck, I shouldn’t have used the word hypothetical!” you finally manage to say as he pauses to catch his breath. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry!” 

“Didn’t—ha! Didn’t mean it like that?” he snorts, hands balling up at his sides. “Then what the fuck did you mean?” 

“I’m not trying to make fun of you!” You end up shouting it; you don’t even realize until it’s already escaped your mouth, and you suck your lips behind your teeth contritely. 

“Well you’re doing a shit job at that, Captain Fuckup!” Karkat throws his hands up. And then points one hand toward the door. “Just fucking go, John, I can’t fucking be around you right now.” 

“Wait, go—go? You’re telling me to leave?” 

“Shockingly, yeah, this is my apartment and I have the power to do that,” he snaps. “But hey, if you want to just sit on my fucking couch when I don’t want to even look at you, be my goddamn guest! Go ahead and be an even bigger jackass.” 

“Fine. Fine! You don’t have to be such an asshole about it,” you spit back. “I’m going!” 

Five minutes later you have to just sit down on the sidewalk because you can’t even fathom how wrong that just went. 

Karkat doesn’t talk to you at all for the rest of the night, and you’re so inundated with classwork the next day you don’t have time to look for his messages. Your work takes all the longer for how you can’t stop making yourself sick with remorse, self-flagellating every five minutes for having been so stupid about it. 

By the time you get back to your dorm the night after leaving Karkat’s, there are no messages from him still, but there _is_ a notification on Skype for a contact request, from one _terminallycapricous_. The user icon is just an ugly drawing of a clown, and the only information given is that they’re in the Eastern time zone. The default request text is replaced with “let’s talk karkat. :o)”

You accept immediately, despite the alarm bells that sound in your head. 

Within seconds of your acceptance the user is calling you, which is way too much like a horror movie for your comfort; you glance around nervously before picking up. 

“Good motherfuckin’ evening to you,” a voice sounds out before the video connects, and your organs feel like they’re twisting up inside you as you recognize it. The video confirms the user’s identity—Gamzee. 

“Did Karkat give you my Skype name?” you ask, dry-mouthed. 

“I ain’t real pleased with you about now,” Gamzee says, ignoring your question as he twiddles a hank of greasy hair between his fingers. “Got my best friend all in a big upset tizzy, all thinkin’ you’re yukkin’ it up at his expense.” 

“I’m not,” you protest, but it comes out quiet and weak. 

“You think his feelings are funny, motherfucker?” he asks, somehow managing to make eye contact through a webcam, and a jolt of fear tears down your spine. 

“No, no, it wasn’t like that,” you say, trying to not let him see you shake. You shove your hands under your thighs where they won’t give you away. “I was—”

“I ain’t never seen that motherfucker actually _cry_ in a long time, not like the way he did last night,” Gamzee interrupts, letting go of his hair to steeple his fingers. “I ain’t like to see Karkat cry.” 

“He cried?” That hits you harder than anything. You don’t deserve Karkat. 

“You make him cry again, li’l Egbert man, I’m gonna pull out your see-balls and fry ‘em up nice and spicy just for you to eat.” Gamzee’s smile makes you want to puke with terror. “Ain’t no continent can keep me from hurting you if I gotta.” And the call ends. 

For a good few hours afterward you can’t focus on any of your work, or really anything besides the fact that Karkat hates you, his moirail wants to literally kill you, and you can’t even talk to your best friend of seven years about it. You never knew life could turn to shit so fast.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok now im going to sleep because i have work tonight
> 
> i think the rest of the fic is just going to stay in john's pov because all these additional chapters after 4 were supposed to be one single chapter in his pov, and.... obviously that didn't happen oops

This city has never felt so empty. You go to work and school and you feel like a simple program, cycling through your tasks mindlessly. Jade doesn’t have time to talk to you lately, and it’s been too long since you talked to Jane online to just drop all this shit on her. (You never really talked to Jake.) 

You surprise yourself with how much you miss Dave. 

True that he made you feel like shit. When you think about Dave beyond missing him your heart hurts and you want to curl up so hard you disappear, but you’ve known each other since you were both squeaky young things, still exploring an ugly Netscape internet and trying to find the Mew under the truck. (Dave claims he never did this, but you know better.) He was your only friend outside of family through middle school, when you felt ugly and lost, and you still remember how he offered to kill the boys who called you a dyke right before pushing you down a short flight of stairs. 

You see him log in and out every day and the silence hurts, but you don’t know if he feels the same way. You double-click his username so many times, type so many unsent messages, but you close the window every time because every time you remember how he left without saying goodbye, how he kept making it about himself. If only he would contact you first and fucking _apologize_. 

More raw is the pain of missing Karkat; it’s only been a couple days, but he’s not talking to you either right now, and what makes it worse is you know you deserve it. You shouldn’t have said anything, should have just swallowed your feelings, let this crush subside for the both of you. Karkat doesn’t deserve to be your rebound, and he doesn’t deserve someone who can’t fulfill his cultural requirements for a relationship. You’re basically asking him to cheat on Gamzee, whom you’re unwilling to cross. You value your life, after all, even if it’s a miserable one right now. 

You still don’t have a car, so without Karkat willingly giving you rides you’re back to a lot of walking and bus-riding. You’re so glad LA winters have nothing on winters back home, but it feels like it takes forever to get around in comparison. Karkat’s got you fucking spoiled rotten. 

Jade finally finds time for you one night when you’re walking home, and since you’re taking what feels like a thousand years to get where you’re going anyway, you text and walk. 

 

GG: omg i wish id never told dave i was your cousin!! ugh  
EB: wait what?  
GG: i dont know how you were ever even friends with him  
EB: what is he doing?  
GG: ugh well he hits on me like at least once every time i see him for one thing  
GG: for another he just?? hes drunk every time too  
GG: i didnt peg you for the type to hook up with party boys john  
EB: i’m... not? that doesn’t sound like him, he’s always been kind of too much of a wimp to try underage drinking.  
GG: are we talking about the same dave...  
EB: i’m. uh. i’m not sure anymore?  
EB: is he there right now?  
GG: this is what i get for wanting to enjoy nyc nightlife!!  
GG: no i left the bar  
EB: oh, so i guess you couldn’t take a picture to confirm...  
GG: do you seriously want me to go back and take a picture of a drunk person on my phone  
EB: it sounds creepy when you put it that way!  
GG: it’s creepy no matter what you gross creeper creep :/  
GG: but whatever anything for my best cousin!!  
EB: no you don’t have to! wtf!  
GG: too late  
GG: brb  
EB: jade don’t you dare!  
EB: jade!  
EB: if you do this i will hate you!  
EB: JADE

 

She’s gone, though, and you stuff your phone back into your pocket with a frustrated huff. Ten minutes later you’re settling into your chair, and as your computer wakes up Jade is sending you an image already. It’s dark and grainy, but it’s definitely Dave, and he definitely looks like he’s having a hard time leaning on the bar’s countertop. You think you can also make out a stain on his shirt front that looks like he spilled a drink on himself. 

 

EB: that’s definitely dave, wow. he looks like a mess.  
GG: i told you!!  
EB: does he have like, a fake id or something?  
GG: uh how should i know?? im not about to ask  
GG: im leaving again  
GG: do you need any more creepy papparazzi shots :B  
EB: what are you doing at the bar anyway? aren’t you underage too?  
GG: shut up john!!  
EB: do you have a fake id? oh my god  
GG: you are such a straight-laced jackass!! i’m not sharing anything else with you ever again  
GG: don’t you rat on me to grandpa!!  
EB: chill the fuck out! i’m not a snitch, jesus christ.  
EB: anyway, uh, thanks for the photo... i guess... that was weird of you.  
GG: you’re so ungrateful omfg  
EB: ANYWAY  
EB: im gonna go do homework i guess, and maybe, uh, text karkat.  
GG: oh yeah how is that going  
GG: you didnt really tell me anything after i told you to confess to him already!!  
EB: wow, suddenly i don’t want to talk about anything anymore!  
EB: goodbye!  
GG: wait what happened??  
GG: it didn’t go well im guessing?  
EB: no shit! it basically blew up in my face.  
EB: he hates me now.  
EB: oh, and his moirail threatened to kill me over skype for making him cry! so that’s really fucking cool.  
GG: what??????  
EB: i should just leave him alone forever and spare him my horrible company forever. and also possibly not get killed by doing so...  
GG: threatened to kill you???  
EB: yes? i mean he’s in new jersey so it’s not that big of a deal really, it just scared me a lot at the time.  
GG: you mean like.... the district near where i currently live  
GG: :|  
EB: ...i didn’t tell karkat about you going to cooper union yet, though. plus can’t they not leave the district unless they’re moving out or something?  
GG: im pretty sure the law wouldn’t keep one of those trolls from sneaking out just to slit a few throats ok  
GG: john this could be serious  
EB: i’m sure it’s not. besides if i get back on karkat’s good side, the danger will go away!  
EB: so let me go and do that, or try to anyway.  
GG: ugh  
GG: ok fine  
GG: good luck!!  
EB: thanks jade!  
GG: youll probably need it  
EB: i said thanks!  
GG: like a lot  
EB: wow okay bye!!!!!!

 

You minimize her window before she can psych you out any worse, and open a new one to Karkat. You’ve had the same problem trying to communicate with him that you have with Dave, typing and retyping message after unsent message, but tonight you brace yourself and just hit enter. 

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] --

  EB: karkat! hi!  
EB: hey karkat!  
EB: okay i know you don’t really want to talk to me right now.  
EB: that’s totally understandable.  
EB: i am an asshole of gigantic proportions.  
EB: like, goatse proportions. this is the mega asshole, and its name is john egbert.  
EB: i am the worst, it’s me.  
EB: karkat, please don’t make me talk to myself like this while i’m completely sober, it’s embarrassing for both of us.  
EB: you know it is.  
EB: okay no, i don’t drink, that’s true.  
CG: JOHN.  
EB: everyone my age is drinking except me, wow.  
CG: LOOK AT ME PAYING ATTENTION TO YOU RIGHT NOW, AND STOP TYPING STUPID SHIT.  
EB: oh! hi karkat!  
CG: LOOK. ABOUT THE OTHER DAY.  
EB: yeah, actually, i did wanna talk about that, and tell you that wow, i’m really sorry for upsetting you.  
CG: I’M SORRY ABOUT GAMZEE, HE’S AN ASSHOLE AND IF I COULD I WOULD ACTUALLY KICK HIS ASS IN PERSON.  
CG: UPSET ME? OH NO, NO YOU DEFINITELY DIDN’T UPSET ME AT ALL, WITH YOUR SHITTY DECISION TO PLAY WITH MY EMOTIONS, EGBERT. WHY WOULD THAT UPSET ME? I AM A SERENE LAKE OF SERENITY.  
CG: FUCK YOU.  
EB: i’m honestly sorry! i wasn’t trying to do that, i promise.  
CG: WILL I REGRET IT IF I ASK WHAT THE ACTUAL BULGEMANGLING FUCK YOU WERE TRYING TO DO, THEN?  
EB: i don’t know if i should be telling you online...  
CG: I WILL SKIN YOU. I WILL SKIN YOU ALIVE, SLOWLY AND AGONIZINGLY, ALL WHILE LOOKING YOU IN THE EYE AND WHISPERING NICOLAS CAGE QUOTES IN A VOICE AS SLOW AND AGONIZING TO HEAR. YOU WILL NEVER KNOW A PAIN LIKE THIS, EVEN IF YOU SURVIVE.  
EB: okay see now i definitely can’t say it, not after something like THAT.  
EB: it’s just weird.  
EB: aren’t you ever gonna get your capslock key fixed?  
CG: IT’S JUST STUCK, WHAT’S THE POINT OF TRYING TO GET THAT FIXED? I DON’T GIVE A SHIT AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU. DON’T CHANGE THE FUCKING SUBJECT, JOHN.  
EB: i just think it’s something i should say in person!  
CG: DON’T FUCK WITH ME, JOHN, DON’T FUCKING DO IT. I CAN’T DEAL WITH ANYMORE OF YOUR BULLSHIT, I SWEAR TO FUCK.  
EB: um... is there a chance you can pick me up? like in your car?  
CG: ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?  
EB: yes?  
CG: FINE. FINE. GIVE ME A MINUTE TO FIND SOME PANTS, AND I’LL BE RIGHT OVER TO DRIVE YOU BACK TO MY HOVEL.  
CG: IS THERE SOME FUCKING REASON I CAN’T COME UP TO YOUR ROOM? DOES YOUR SCHOOL ENGAGE IN ANTI-TROLL POLICIES I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT?  
EB: uh, not that i know of? your apartment is just comfier, my room is just a bed and a desk and a lot of junk. your couch is nice.  
CG: NOTHING I OWN IS NICE, YOU LYING FUCKBIRD. I’M COMING OVER. 

 

When Karkat arrives you practically throw yourself into the car, leaning over the gear shift to wrap your arms around him. He pushes you off hastily, and you sit back sheepishly, strapping yourself in, but he doesn’t go into a rant about how much he didn’t want to be hugged, so you figure you’re in the clear. The drive is silent except for when you reach for the radio, but it’s stuck on a country music station that makes Karkat want to tear the radio right out of the console, so you turn it off hastily. 

Once in Karkat’s apartment you flop onto his couch, but he doesn’t join you, instead standing in front of you with crossed arms. “So what the fuck was so huge you couldn’t just continue fucking IMing me?” he wants to know. 

“You couldn’t sit down next to me?” you ask, but you’re basically stalling and you can tell he can tell, too. So you clear your throat, and force yourself to look him in the eye. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you, Karkat.”

“Okay, yeah, we’ve established that that’s what you _think_ you were doing, let’s move the fuck on,” he says, flapping his hand in circles at you. “Come on.” 

You take a deep breath. “I was trying to ask you out—”

“Stop. _Stop_ right the fuck there.” Karkat holds his hands up, and he doesn’t even look angry; he looks _scared_. “Stop with the stupid fucking prank, I can’t believe you got me to fucking drive you to my place just so you could continue playing a shitty _joke_ on me—”

“—I’m being serious!” you say as you jump up. “Karkat, will you just fucking listen to me and stop with the defensive bullshit?”

“Defensive?!” Karkat squawks, throwing his hands up. “Did you just call me _defensive?!”_

“I was trying to ask you out because, because I actually like you, you dumbshit!” you shout in return, sitting back down when your knees start to feel shaky. “But, but maybe I shouldn’t, because—”

“You _what_ me?”

“I said I like you! I think you’re great, even though you yell all the time and think everyone hates you when a lot of people actually do like you! Except, you know, I’m trying to say I like you _more_ than that, like, uh, the thing you said, the color red?” You’re flustered as hell, waving your hands by your face. “But I’m really stupid so mostly I just wanted to clear up that I wasn’t trying to prank you or anything, okay?” 

Karkat sits down very suddenly next to you, frowning at you with parted lips. “You’re lying.” 

“I thought about you the whole time I was home,” you say softly, staring at your bony knees. “But I think my reasons for wanting to be with you are selfish. I don’t want you to feel like you’re rebound.” You glance back up at him. “I know you... I know you respect me, and my stupid crybaby boundaries, and that’s kind of big, considering, but that doesn’t mean anything for how you feel about me, and you can ignore basically every pathetic word that’s coming out of my mouth right now.” Wow, that was way too many words. 

You can see the tension in Karkat’s every cell as he searches your eyes; his own are full of fear. “Don’t fuck with me, John.” He’s shaking as badly as you just were. 

“I’m not! I promise. I do.” You hold your hands up as you twist to face him properly. “I’m not fucking with you.” 

“You don’t want me,” he says, shoulders pulling up as you turn toward him. “I’m, I’m a fucking mess, I’m emotionally stunted, I’m gross in every sense of the word, _especially_ physically—”

“And I’m a whiny amoeba with the wrong junk, but you still like me, somehow,” you interject, a small smile tugging at your lips. “Look, all I’m saying is you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, including dating a dumb short human that can’t deal with basic intimacy.” 

Karkat doesn’t look convinced. 

“And for the record,” you add, “I don’t think you’re gross, physically or otherwise? Not that my opinion is worth a damn.” 

“I need a smoke,” Karkat groans, but he just leans against you, holding one side of his head. 

He doesn’t give you an actual answer the rest of the night, and you try not to feel too disappointed. But after he drives you back to your dorm for the night, you check your buzzing phone as you enter your room and find a single text.

FOR THE RECORD, YES. ASSHOLE.

You smile so hard you’re surprised you don’t pull something. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love your comments!! especially when i come home to them after ten hours on the graveyard shift c: it really makes my mornings!
> 
> anyway you know what it means when i end on a happy note


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so short im just really exhausted by work lately because i work ten hour shifts and i dont have time to have a life between shifts even when i have a single night off between them
> 
> i love you all
> 
> please let me know if any of you feel this needs additional tagging, as always, and please tell me all your emotions and stuff at the end
> 
> im going to bed

For the first few weeks, everything is pretty much the same as it always was, despite your technical change in relationship status. You do lean on Karkat more often if you sit together, but you make extra sure you’re not doing anything to make him uncomfortable, and actually ask him if he’s alright with you touching him so often that he yells at you to just fucking relax and hug him. (You do.) 

Then one night you wake up to your phone actually ringing, and you pick up with a groggy “Hello?” 

“Egber’, you li’l shit!” Dave laughs on the other end, and you sit up. 

“Dave?” You fumble for your glasses to glance at the clock. “It’s like three in the morning, is something wrong?” 

“I heard y’got together wi’ like, the first troll you’ve ever met,” he slurs, and you pinch the bridge of your nose in irritation. 

“I’m going back to sleep.” 

“I mean, hey! Tha’s cool. That’sss real cool. I’m jus’, gonna go back to gettin’ my dick sucked, because surprise, mo’fucker! I don’t fuckin’ need you to get laid! I’m Dave Strider, an’ I get all the ladies. An’ dudes. An’ everybody else. I’m so hot ain’t nobody even mind if I make calls in the middle o’ sex.” His laugh is obnoxious, as obviously drunk as the rest of his speech. 

You hang up, face burning. 

It turns out he pulled that particular piece of information out of Jade, but she’s not to blame; it’s not like you told her not to tell Dave basic information like that, and it’s not like you expected Dave to react by harassing you about it. You do send her a text telling her to avoid telling Dave anything else about your relationship, though. 

You’re not sure who’s taking things more slowly between Karkat and you. You’ve stopped asking him permission for things like hugs, but you want to pretty much hug him with your whole body, not just around the shoulders. He knows every detail of your issues with sex from when you wouldn’t shut up about it during your breakup, so he sneaks in chaste kisses on the cheek sometimes, which you admit you like. 

Dave starts drunk-texting you when you won’t pick up on his calls anymore. He’s _always_ drunk, and _always_ bragging about sex. He likes to remind you that he’s with a different partner each time, because he’s a “stud who can get any-fucking-body he wants”, after you translate it from the autocorrected mess he actually sent you. You don’t know how to block numbers on your phone, but you do block him online just in case. 

One night you sleep over at Karkat’s, and as he gets into bed next to you, you ask if you can touch more than usual. He goes tense, but before you can retract that request he asks, “How much?” 

“Like, cuddling. The full body kind,” you say, opening up your arms. “I wanna hold you. Please,” you add. 

He looks hesitant, which twists your gut, but when he lies down he puts his head on your shoulder, and you wrap yourself around him. “Is this okay?” Checking as much as you do is the only way you don’t envision yourself in Dave’s role. 

“I don’t know,” Karkat admits, which takes you by surprise with his honesty. It stings. You start to pull away but he grabs your arm in a vice grip, keeps you close. “Dumbass! I didn’t mean like, physically. I mean, fuck, no, this is nice.” He drums his fingers on your shoulder, humming against your collarbone. “I’m sorry I’m such a confusing piece of garbage.” 

“It’s because of Gamzee, right?” you ask, voice soft with resignation. 

“Yeah,” Karkat whispers back. “I just... I’ve been lying to him.” 

“Lying like how?” you ask the ceiling, frowning. 

“I told him we do have sex. I know, I know,” he interrupts himself, clutching at your shoulder, “I should have told him to fuck off with his nosy bullshit, but he’s my moirail, I can’t... I can’t fucking help myself.” 

“Why did you tell him that?” You think you know the answer already, though, a chill already coming over you. 

“Because I don’t want him thinking I’m being unfaithful, and honestly, John, I don’t fucking know that I’m not.” He pulls away to sit up, and all you can see is the clothed expanse of his back. “I don’t know if this is right. I don’t know if I can do this.” 

“No, no, _no_ ,” you say, sitting up to join him in a flash. “Please don’t say that, Karkat, for fuck’s sake, please...!”

“Well what the fuck do you want from me, John! I can’t—I can’t do that to Gamzee, I can’t just—” He looks at you with so much frustration you’re just waiting for the explosion. “I can’t _leave_ him for you, John, that would be shitty! We’ve been moirails for years! And I don’t—look, I do fucking like it when we cuddle, but I’m not goddamn pale for you!” 

You can’t even speak. You curl forward with your hands over your face, not even aware you’re crying until you feel the wetness on your fingers, and it makes you feel worse because isn’t being a big emotional crybaby what girls do? (Like you must really be?) All you see is a lifetime of loneliness ahead of you, broken and sexless and wrong. Karkat is trying to pull you back upright, murmuring something that’s probably comforting, but the lump in your throat makes your hearing distant, and at last you do sit up, but only because it’s his bed and you have no right to just flop over any way you please. 

“Jesus, what a fucking reaction,” Karkat says, but he says it while running fingers through your hair, soft-eyed and worried. “I’m not saying I don’t like you, John.” 

“You want sex,” you croak. “I... I can’t, please, I can’t fucking do it again... But I want this to work...!” You have to speak through sobs even as you try to choke them back, angry at yourself for crying. 

“I do too, but fuck, John, I don’t know how to make it work. I’m not going to make you do shit you don’t want to do.” 

“Are you going to break up with me?” It’s barely been a month. 

There’s a pause that squeezes your heart until it feels like it’s going to burst, and then, “No. No, definitely not.” And you sag against him with relief, even if it doesn’t solve your issue. 

“Can we just, I don’t know, sleep on it?” you mumble, and Karkat nods. 

“Yeah, no, that’s probably for the best.” He tugs you back down with him as he lies back. “Come on, crybaby, we’re gonna fucking cuddle to sleep.” You punch him in the shoulder and tell him he’s probably a bigger crybaby, but you throw your limbs around him anyway, and for the next two hours you try to pretend you’re asleep and not just fucking riddled with anxiety. 

You wake up to your phone ringing, and in your stupor you don’t check the caller ID and pick up. “H’llo?” you groan, hand flapping around on the nightstand for your glasses. 

“Joooooooooohn,” Dave’s voice whines from the other end, and you almost hang up immediately. You’re still not entirely sure why you don’t. “John, I miss you, you fuckin’ pissbaby, Joooohnnnn...!” He’s drunk again, that’s for sure. 

“Yeah, well, I miss you too, but not these calls,” you mutter, rolling onto your back so you can shove your glasses on. “Did you want something?” 

“You,” he says, and you roll your eyes at how fucking sad he sounds. He probably still doesn’t understand why you broke up. “You’re my best fucking friend, John, even if—if you think I’m ugly, or an asshole, and I know I’m both—”

“That’s not why I broke up with you!” you snap, which wakes up Karkat with a start. “Jesus, Dave, it’s like eight in the morning here, why are you still drunk?” 

“’S only five here,” he slurs. “No fuckin’ worries, Gramps.” 

“Jade tells me you’ve been doing a lot of drinking,” you say, quieting down as Karkat turns over to glare at you for waking him up. “She’s spotted you being fall-down drunk a lot, and every time you contact me you’re drunk.” 

“Well, look, Jjjjohn, nob’y told you to be such a prude, okay? I mean, damn, I’m out here livin’ the _life_ , okay?” He laughs and splutters at the same time; his phone probably just got sprayed with saliva. 

“I’m sure,” you deadpan. “Look—”

“I mean, it’s no’ my fault I’m such a fuckin’ stud, right, that I’ve been gettin’ lucky since I was ten years old! It’s hotties plyin’ me with drinks I ain’t even gotta pay for half the time, just for a chance at Strider junk,” he’s saying, but you sort of tune out the second half. 

“You’ve been doing what since when?” Your guts twist and it feels like something heavy is weighing down the bottom of your stomach. Your skin is fucking crawling. 

“Oh, John, y’wanna say hi to this bouncer-lookin’ dude—” And the line goes dead, which makes you a little nervous, but it’s a secondary emotion to what you think you may have just learned about Dave. 

“Was that Dave?” Karkat grouses. “The fuck did he want?” 

“Oh, nothing,” you say, absently. “Just... Just saying hi. Go back to sleep.” You feign doing so yourself, putting both phone and glasses aside. “It’s nothing.” 

He doesn’t look like he believes you, but he’s too tired to push the issue.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> last chapter!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it, guys! the end of courtship dating! i hope you enjoy this ending, having four days off in a row definitely helped improve the quality over the last few chapters i churned out while exhausted and wrung out

The first time you and Karkat actually kiss, like more than a peck on the cheek or forehead, it’s your idea. Karkat says he never initiates anything because he respects your boundaries, and you do believe him, but you know way too well by now how hideous he finds himself, and not in that facetious way Dave seems to say it of himself. You can see him fighting himself every time he lets you hold him, or vice versa, the way sometimes he tenses like he’s waiting for you to laugh at him. 

You tell yourself, as you shift on the couch to face him, it’s not a pity kiss. It’s not a kiss just to make him feel better, because you’re also not going to let fucking Dave Strider ruin one of the few pseudo-sexual activities you do enjoy. You _do_ like kissing. 

Karkat keeps glancing at you warily as you kneel on the cushion next to him; he’s editing some blog nobody ever looks at except you and Gamzee (mostly Gamzee) that reviews Oscar bait flicks. You don’t have the heart to tell him to stop comparing The Departed to The Notebook, and Gamzee probably doesn’t have the context for what a stupid comparison that is. “Can I help you?” 

You’ve got a million smooth ideas in your head for how to go about this, but when he’s prompting you like that they all fail, and instead you just let yourself fall against his shoulder and say, “Hey Karkat, wanna make out?” 

“Very fucking funny, John,” he snorts, and you guess he figures this is your ploy for attention because he leans forward to put his laptop on the coffee table with a grunt. When he sits back, he holds his hands up for you to flop face-up into his lap. “There, happy? I stopped blogging.” 

“You weren’t even writing a post, I saw you, you were fixing your broken code,” you laugh, reaching up to poke him in the nose. “That’s not blogging, that’s cleaning up your own stupid mess. Did you even fix it?” 

“Yes! My coding is fucking fine, thank you very much!” he retorts, cheeks hot and red as he hunches up. “I should just put my laptop on your face and go back to it!” 

“Or we could make out,” you say, not to be deterred from your original quest. “I’m being serious, Karkat.” 

His shoulders drop, and he sighs. “John. I always tell you,” he says as he cards his fingers through your hair, “we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. And you definitely don’t have to kiss my hideous face.” 

“Well, yeah, but this is one of those things I do like,” you say, stilling his hand when you cradle his wrist against the side of your face. “I’m saying it because I want it.” 

“But didn’t you tell me that—”

“Jesus, Karkat, do I have to justify everything I do or don’t like?” you interrupt, letting out a hard exhalation as you let go of him and fold your arms. “I can’t explain it to you any better than ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’!” 

“I guess trying to categorize everything is just a trollish thing to do, huh?” he says quietly, albeit with a little smile. “Fine then, it’s your terrible choice to choose to kiss someone like me.” 

He’s not moving, though, so you pull yourself up and back to sit side-saddle across his legs; his eyes dart around nervously when you put your arms around his shoulders. You can’t say you’re not nervous yourself, given that all your experience with kissing has been with Dave, which is definitely a tainted memory. And you don’t think you were all that good at it. 

“So, you’ve definitely made out before, right?” you say with a hiccupy little giggle. 

“You set this up just to make fun of me, didn’t you?” he shoots right back, biting his lip when you just laugh some more. 

“No, I’m just probably a shitty kisser because I only ever... Well, the point is, don’t expect anything great.” You press your forehead to his. “In fact, try to expect the worst, and maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised.” 

“As if I haven’t been the most pathetic, creepy loser in all of fucking California, wanting to kiss you this long,” he murmurs, but he still won’t make the first move so you do. 

He has soft, pliant lips, a small ridge of cracked skin on the lower one from dry winter air. His arms wrap around your upper body to press you closer, and he actually does kiss back, mouth insistent against yours. It’s hard to coordinate when your mouths will open and you’re just completely unsure of what you’re doing, but the contact does send a shiver of electricity down to your groin that you’re just as unsure of what to do with. He breaks the kiss to apologize for being such a shitty kisser, but you shush him, tell him you’re probably worse, and does he like it? He nods, a shaky breath escaping his nostrils. 

You say _Wait,_ , and get up to straddle Karkat’s lap for a better angle. The back of your brain is making little shrieking noises as you settle across his hips, because this is an inherently sexual pose, but you block it out. You trust Karkat. You do. 

Again you start, Karkat letting you take the lead until he seems sure you still want this. You’re hyper-aware of how sharp Karkat’s teeth are as your tongue pokes past them, an experiment. Somewhere in your mind you wish you’d let Dave kiss you as much as he clearly wanted to, then maybe you could give Karkat something better than your amateur fumblings. At least he seems to be enjoying himself. 

You feel something _moving_ against your groin, and panic flutters up your throat and out of your mouth. “What was that?” you ask as you break away, glancing down. 

“What was what?” Karkat gasps, looking a little glassy-eyed. 

“I just, I thought I felt—?” Karkat closes his eyes with a big heaving breath, and you feel it again; this time you’re aware of it even once it stills, a definite bulge in the front of his pants. Hot shame floods your cheeks as you realize that even Karkat, with his willful ignorance about human anatomy and his definite alien qualities, is more male than you. You pull yourself off him and onto the couch next to him, hiding your face in your hands. 

“John? What’s—oh, fuck. Fuck!” You look through your fingers and Karkat looks just as ashamed—although you’re not sure if you’re surprised, between how you feel about it and how much you know Karkat hates himself. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking disgusting—” There it is, then, he just hates himself. 

“No, no, I’m just an idiot,” you say as you lean against him. “I shouldn’t have suggested anything, I can’t fucking handle anything apparently.” 

Karkat gets up abruptly, though, leaving you to fall on your side with flailing arms. “I’m gonna go take a shower,” he mumbles, staggering off, and you’re left staring at a light damp spot where Karkat had been sitting. You sit up immediately, knowing better than to say anything to such an easily-embarrassed troll. 

But you do wonder. 

He manages to recover for the most part by the next night, at least in dignity if nothing else, but a lot of your touching privileges get revoked. It’s more than a bit ironic, considering you’re the one who freaked out on him, but you don’t mention as much, content for now with just light cuddling before you go to sleep. You don’t spend very much time in your dorm anymore. 

Dave calls five more times in the space of two days after you freaked out on Karkat, and you ignore them all. You don’t want to turn off your phone because you’re in the middle of some dumb group project, but Dave floods your text inbox to the point where you tell your classmates to just email if they really need to contact you, and shut off your phone until further notice. 

You feel bad, of course. Besides the fact that he’s your best friend since forever, you’re not sure what to take away from his admission. There’s the fact, of course, that he could have been lying, just a drunken braggart, but it seemed more like a slip than anything else. If you were a real friend to him you would reach out to him, do something, _anything_ other than ignore him. But you just can’t fucking deal with him. 

Karkat is a much more pressing issue. You will never admit to Karkat, ever, in a million years, that you totally investigated that wet spot with a sniff and a poke while he was in the shower, and so far you’ve come to the conclusion that no, Karkat did not piss the couch, so no, that’s not his reason for storming off in embarrassment. You’re curious enough to consider asking, you’re just not sure how to articulate it. 

All you really have is your usual tactic, though. So three nights after the makeout incident, as Karkat is climbing into bed next to you, you just go ahead and say it. 

“Karkat,” you say, chewing your lower lip, “can I see you naked?” 

“ _What?”_ His voice is sharp, his expression sharper. 

“After the other day, I just, you know, I’m curious!” you say with a deep shrug. “And I feel really stupid for freaking out.” 

“Curious.” He sits on the bed slowly, never taking his eyes off you. “Just... curious.” 

“Yes?” Shit, you’re just going to piss him off. “Is that bad?” 

“What exactly are you curious about? How many rolls of fat I have? If trolls get cellulite? If I have, what’s that called, nipples?” As he leans forward you lean away. “Or no, let me guess. What kind of gross freakish alien genitalia I have, right?” 

“I—well—yes? The last one?” You cringe. “But without the ‘gross, freakish’ part, I guess, since I don’t think you’re gross.” You don’t know how to address the rest of his self-loathing; you’ve never been even close to fat in your life. “ _Do_ you have nipples?” 

“No,” he says flatly. “And I don’t have that weird hole in the middle of my stomach, either.” 

“No belly-button?” you say with an incredulous little smile. “Can I see?” 

“How is it called a ‘button’ when it’s a _hole?”_ Karkat snaps as he pulls up his shirt just enough to show you his round, and indeed navel-less, belly. “Nothing you people say makes any sense.” He yanks it back down. 

“Well I mean, sometimes it’s a button! Check it out,” you say, lifting your shirt just shy of where the bottom of your binder would be if you weren’t going to bed, “I have an outie, see? So that’s kind of like a button.” 

“And you think my anatomy is weird,” Karkat says with a snort as he touches it, which makes you squirm a bit with ticklishness. 

“I don’t know anything about your anatomy, really,” you counter, and he rolls his eyes. 

“Do you promise you’ll at least not tell me how gross I am, no matter how true it is or how much you think it, if I do this?” he asks, kneading the hem of his shirt. 

“It won’t be true, which is why I won’t be able to think or say it,” you say, putting your hands over his. “But you don’t have to do it if you wanna just go to bed.” 

Karkat hesitates so long that for a moment you think he might just do that, and then his hands move under yours, pulling at his shirt again. This time he lifts it all the way up and over his head, sleeves turning inside out as he tosses it aside. He looks very much like he wants to grab it and drape it over his exposed upper body, but instead he just starts pushing at the waistband of his pajama bottoms, head down so he doesn’t see you watching him. 

There’s no escaping the fact that he’s fat. As his white briefs gets pulled down with his pants, you find out that trolls really _do_ get cellulite. He’s soft all over, his chest bigger than yours, which as promised has no nipples. What _is_ weird is that when his arms go up, there’s no armpit hair, and when he finally sits back on the bed, cross-legged and utterly naked, there’s no pubic hair, either. You’re not sure why you expected that, given the general hairlessness of his arms and legs, and having never seen a troll in LA yet with any facial hair. 

He looks petrified as you look him over, especially when your eyes fix on his crotch. You feel a mild jolt of surprise when you realize that whatever you felt the other day isn’t here; instead you’re looking at pretty much the neatest vagina you think you may ever see outside of over-photoshopped internet porn. The slit barely opens, just a slender red line breaking up the slightly darker grey skin, and there’s not much in the way of labia, either. There’s kind of a second, smaller slit above it, which is so completely closed you don’t even see it until you look a little closer. You can hear Karkat’s breath pick up when you lean in like that. 

“It’s so... neat,” you say as you sit back. “I thought I felt something, uh, moving, the other day. I guess I was wrong.” 

“That’s what this is about?” Karkat says with a jittery laugh, trying to steady his hands on his knees. “That was my bulge, dumbass.” 

“Your what?” You blink rapidly in your confusion, frowning. 

“My, uhh...” He scrunches his whole face up and gives his head a hard shake, and then points between his legs with a trembling finger. “This that you’re actually looking at, this is my nook. And up here,” he continues, pointing to the smaller closed slit, “is where my bulge lives when I’m, you know, not being a perverted creep who should throw himself out the window, or at least a perverted creep with some control.” 

“I don’t get it.” You didn’t mean to really turn this into an anatomy lesson, you just wanted to _see,_ , but apparently troll junk is just that much of a mystery. 

He lets out a frustrated sigh. “You’ve got me sitting here buck fucking naked and I’m teaching you how my junk works like I’m a goddamn diagram. You are one of a fucking kind, John Egbert.” 

You swallow, sighing too. “Can I tell you something, Karkat?” 

“Obviously.” He glances at his pajama pants like he’s considering putting them back on. 

“Part of why I couldn’t date Dave was, yeah, because I don’t like sex very much, for whatever stupid reason.” That makes Karkat pay attention. “But part of it too was because I was... I was jealous? Because he’s a real guy, and I’m not really, and the other day I thought I felt basically a dick in your pants, and it just...” You wave a hand in front of your face, trying to keep yourself composed. “It’s stupid.” 

“Okay, see, now _I_ don’t get it,” Karkat says, quirking his eyebrows. 

“Look,” you say, and before you quite realize what you’re doing you start peeling off your own clothes. Because you were getting ready to go to sleep, your binder is in the corner with the rest of your street clothes, and for a moment when your shirt is off you ball it up over your tits, before taking a deep breath and reminding yourself that Karkat is being just as brave showing his body to you. You put the shirt aside. 

You have to keep your eyes closed the whole time you push off your boxers, because otherwise you might falter. They join Karkat’s pajama bottoms on the floor, and you copy him by sitting cross-legged, hands on your knees. 

You look Karkat in the eye, and find no judgment there. 

“So is the point you’re making that Dave’s junk is the other kind?” he asks carefully, drumming his fingers on his knees. He might be getting used to being naked with you. Maybe. 

“Yeah, he has a dick,” you say, trying not to sound too bitter about it. “Which is what everybody says guys are supposed to have. I was born a girl. Or at least, I was born with everybody telling me I’m a girl.” 

“Because of your genitals? John, that’s fucking ridiculous,” Karkat says with a click of his tongue. “I knew trolls were better.” 

“Better how?” 

“Nobody _tells_ us we’re one gender or another when we hatch, or when we pupate,” he says, jabbing his finger into the palm of his other hand. You try to ignore the reminder that trolls, Karkat included, start out life as creepy little insectoid beings. “We just decide what we feel most comfortable with, when we feel like it, if we feel like it at all. Some trolls who stay in the district just don’t pick.” He shrugs. “It works for us.” 

“Wow.” You honestly are speechless for a good solid moment, contemplating that. “Jesus, that’s lucky.” 

“I mean, everything else about being a troll is shitty, at least on this planet, but at least we have that.” He starts getting up. “Are we done here? As much as I enjoy having naked conversations about why trolls know better than humans, I’ve got work tomorrow, and I like my sleep. In my pajamas, with my body in all its eye-searing glory covered the fuck up.” 

“Wait—wait, though, one more thing,” you say, holding up a hand. “Um, was the reason you were so embarrassed the other day because of your, uh, bulge-thing, which is invisible I guess, or because of what you left on the couch—”

“Jesus _fuck,_ why did you look?!” Karkat swears, grabbing at both his nubby horns in wide-eyed distress. “What the fuck, John, you fucking—you—why?!” 

“I don’t know? I was curious!” You feel weird still having this conversation in the nude, but it would be about as awkward right now to get up and walk past Karkat to get your clothes off the floor. 

“Aaaahhhhhhhhhffffuck!” he roars, shaking his head side to side by the horns. “My—my _nook_ was wet, John, I was turned the fuck on by you grinding on my bulge and _my nook was wet!_ There, are you fucking satisfied?!” He’s still kind of yanking himself around by the horns when he’s finished, making anguished yelling sounds, and it would be funny if you didn’t know better than to laugh. 

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” you say, and then you say it again a little louder because his tormented groans drown you out the first time. He quiets down, staring at you and panting as he lets go of his horns. “I mean... It’s happened to me too, when I didn’t want it to, and I guess really if you want to be embarrassed, that’s your prerogative, or whatever the word is.” 

“I’m embarrassed of my whole existence,” Karkat grumbles, but he sits back down anyway, pants in hand. “Is there anything else you’re ‘curious’ about, before I put my dignity back on?” he sighs. 

You chew your lip again before answering. “Can... Can I see your bulge?” 

“I told you,” he says as he starts to put one foot into his pants, “it doesn’t come out unless I’m turned on. And right now, sitting here being humiliated by the sight of my own body is not doing it for me, so no, it’s not coming out.” 

“Karkat,” you say, not meaning to sound as pleading as you do. 

“Well—Jesus, John, I know you don’t like sex, so what the fuck are you asking? Do you want me to jerk myself off for your scientific curiosity?” 

“I—” You stop and consider it; would you actually hate it? Do you want to compare this to how things worked with Dave (or would that just make you feel sick)? 

You take the chance. “We don’t have to say it’s for science,” you say softly. “Just, you know. For us? I promise not to freak out or anything.” Crawling up the bed, you lie on your side and pull at Karkat’s arm. “Really, I promise.” 

He follows you down, although at first he tries to cover his belly with his arms when it shifts all to the front. You pull his hands away, kissing both wrists, before letting one go, which tucks under his belly. “You probably won’t be able to fucking see anything past all the fat,” he grumbles. 

“I can see just fine, see? My glasses are on and everything,” you say, which makes him roll his eyes with its cheesiness. Then he’s closing them, lips parting as he starts to work himself over. It’s true that you can’t quite see what he’s doing, though, and you shift a little closer, a little further down. “Can I help?” 

“What do you mean,” he grunts, “help? Besides, you know, just being here.” 

“I do like touching, Karkat, just not when it’s me getting touched,” you say, sliding a hand lightly down his forearm until it’s just resting over his wrist. “I thought I said as much before.” 

“Maybe I just didn’t remember,” he huffs, but he lifts his leg anyway, foot bracing behind his other knee, and you reach past his stomach to find his nook with your fingers. 

What you find is that his nook feels more open than you remember it looking, slick and warm. It feels like _you._ Your fingers slip and bump past his as you rub your fingertips along his slit, unsure if you should stick them in. You look up, and Karkat is fucking beautiful, actually, face flushed and eyelids fluttering, black lips trembling. You crane your head up and kiss him. 

It’s different kissing him in the moment, hot and sloppy and unregrettable. It’s like all his inhibitions are forgotten with arousal, hips moving forward to push your fingers inside him. You’re not sure what else to do with your hand, since he has no clit, but then you feel something slithering around your wrist, and it takes everything in you to not jump at the sensation. 

“On your back,” you gasp as you pull your slick fingers out, and he takes a moment to get himself situated but he complies. When you position yourself between his knees he looks at you with apprehension; by the flicker of his eyes you can tell he’s worried about his body again. So you forget about getting a better look at his bulge, which is curling around your hand as you reach for it, and kiss his belly instead. 

“You’re way more attractive than you think,” you murmur. “I like you the way you are, Karkat.” 

“I don’t—” You dip your fingers across his nook again, experimenting, and he stutters. “Do you mean that?” 

“I know it doesn’t mean anything,” you say as you sit back to finally examine the genitals currently giving you a handshake, “because you’re the one who has to live in your own body, but yeah, I do.” 

“Well,” he says with a little shudder as you massage his bulge, red and tentacular, “I like you too, John. Just the way you are.” 

Somehow it feels different coming from him—somehow, it means more. You lean up and kiss him again. 

It doesn’t take him much longer to come, swearing and sweaty and red and holding you close. What gushes out of his nook and from the sides and spearheaded tip of his bulge is bright cherry red, viscous enough to not look like blood (thankfully). As he comes you call him beautiful, which flusters him more, flushed face screwing up in orgasm. 

Just as he finishes he says he loves you. You’re so startled you just kiss the words away. 

You both fall asleep naked, although you at least remember to clean up a bit before you do. The next morning Karkat wakes you up with loud cursing, because he overslept his alarm and needs to get to work. You look at your phone and realize, hey, you overslept yours, too, and class has already begun, but you find yourself unable to give a fuck, and you just burrow into Karkat’s vacated side of the bed that smells so much like him. 

“God, you’re fucking weird,” are his parting words, before he pushes your hair up to give you a fleeting peck on the forehead and dashes out. You don’t have a key to his place, but you’re fine with that. You don’t feel like going anywhere today. 

You lie back in bed and text Jade about nothing to do with your own life, mostly about her adventures in New York, which she seems to have pretty much every goddamn day. You might get up and get cereal in a bit, but for now you’re just comfortable. 

Your phone rings in the middle of composing a reply, and in your irritation you pick up automatically. (You’d think you’d learn.) “What?” 

“Whoa, dude, that’s no way to pick up the phone, I know your pops taught you better than that,” Dave replies, with a surprisingly clear laugh. 

“You sound not-drunk, what happened? Did you run out of PBR?” you say, which you know is kind of scathing but fuck it, you’ve been putting up with way too much of Dave’s shit lately. 

“I don’t drink PBR, please,” he scoffs. “No, I had to get my stomach pumped the other night and Rose actually slapped me in front of like, two nurses. So now she’s got me on alcohol watch. Don’t you, Rose?” he says, yelling the last bit out away from the phone, and you hear Rose say something in the distance, which you guess confirms her presence. “So yeah, I don’t think we’ve talked while I’m sober in like, a million years, and I figured actually calling and using my words would be the only quick way to convince you I’m not drunk again.” 

“Oh.” _The other night_ probably means the night he got cut off. (And told you something vague and upsetting, you can’t let that go.) “Jesus, how much did you drink?” 

“Let’s just call it a stupid amount and leave it at that,” he says. “I’m supposed to be a good boy now, not supposed to brag about it.” There’s a pause, which is probably Dave taking a puff. “Mostly good, anyway, I’ll quit smoking when I’m dead.” 

“Rose might do something about that, too,” you say, finding it surprisingly easy to laugh. 

“Like fuck she will! Pfah.” He chuckles too, that low rumble that used to make your chest feel tight with longing. “Listen, though, John. I gotta... I gotta apologize, okay? I was a huge shitlord about everything, with the drunk texts, the drunk calls, the... drunk everything, really, fuck. Wow.” Another pause. “But seriously, I’m sorry.” 

“I’m not gonna say right off the bat it’s all okay, because that was seriously fucked up when you actually did it, but I do accept your apology.” You sigh; you almost want to ask him about what you heard, but you figure it’s not the time. “I just wanna be friends again, Dave.” 

“Fuck yeah, dude, we’re biffles to the end of days, you and me.” 

You laugh. “Hell yeah, Strider.” 

“Besides, I got crabs.” You can hear the wry smile in his voice. 

You laugh way, way harder than you mean to. Life is goddamn wonderful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah, that's the end!!! i hope you enjoyed the ride as much as i enjoyed writing it and interacting with you all; your comments have been so wonderful and motivating! please let me know what you thought of the ending/fic on the whole/whatever, if you would like
> 
> obviously this is not the end of nukestuck, as i still have a wip published, and more in my little blue notebook that need to be typed up. so no worries! there's more ahead. c: 
> 
> thank you all so much! i love you all very much


End file.
